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A Daughter of the 

Sierra 


BY 


CHRISTIAN REID. 



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ST. LOUIS, MO., 1903. 
PUBLISHED BY B. HERDER, 
17 SOUTH BROADWAY. 






THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS. 

Two Copies Received 


JUN 10 1903 


Copyright Entiy 



HwiX’ S'- 1 ^ o “b 

LASS CC XXc. No. 

(=> I 2> U- 

COPY B. 


Copyright 1903, 

BY 

Joseph Gummersbach. 




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Becktold 

Printing and Book Mfg. Co. 
ST. LOUIS, MO., U. S. A, 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER. PAGE. 

I. A Meeting — and Its Result 1 

II. In the Quebrada 11 

III. Doha Victoria 24 

IV. At Guasimillas 33 

V. Under the Orange Trees ........ 48 

VI. L,as Joyas 59 

VII. An Appeal 69 

VIII. Doha Beatriz Speaks 79 

IX. In the Patio of theCaridad 87 

X. Armistead is Confidential ... 101 

XI. In the Plaza 121 

XII. The Use and Fate of a Sketch. . . 133 

XIII. Into the Sierra 154 

XIV. An Old Acquaintance 165 

XV. At the Santa Cruz 177 

XVI. An Encounter on the Trail 191 

XVII. Arturo Faces an Accuser 202 

XVIII. Miss Rivers Obtains a Promise.. . 214 

XIX. “I Have Been Cast Out of Eden” 226 

XX. In the Quebrada Onda 239 

XXI. In a Cave of the Sierra 251 

XXII. A Ride in the Greenwood 263 

XXIII. “No Man is Stronger than Fate” 278 

XXIV. AtLosCharcos 288 

XXV. A Request for Consolation 298 

XXVI. Eloyd Brings a Warning 309 

XXVII. Doha Beatriz Gives Her Orders. . 320 
XXVIII. On the Way to the Santa Cruz . . 331 

XXIX. “I Ask Nothing” 342 

XXX. The Surprise Party is Surprised. 353 








A Daughter of the Sierra. 


CHAPTER I. 

A MEETING — AND ITS R£SUI/f. 

RY one of those accidents on which often hinge, or 
appear to hinge, the destinies of human life, two 
men — one entering, the other leaving the Crocker 
Building in San Francisco on a certain day — almost 
ran into each other. They recoiled with mutual 
apologies, simultaneously recognized an acquaint- 
ance and shook hands. One was slender, alert, ex- 
tremely well-dressed, with the keen American busi- 
ness face, clean-shaven in deference to fashion, and 
wearing eye-glasses above a prominent nose. The 
other was taller and more sinewy, lean as a gray- 
hound, tanned deeply by the sun, carelessly attired, 
but with the unmistakable air of a gentleman, and an 
equally unmistakable look of good blood about the 
clear-cut contours of the face, with its drooping 
brown moustache and steady gray eyes. 

“Lloyd! Didn’t know you were in San Fran- 
cisco,” said the first man, whose name was Armis- 
tead. “Been here long ?” 

“Since yesterday,” Philip Lloyd answered. “And 
you?” 


2 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


“Oh ! I’m here constantly now, except when I am 
away — which sounds like an Irish bull, but isn’t.” 

“Not in a mining expert,” the other laughed. 
“Have you been away lately?” 

“I’m just back from Puget Sound, where I have 
been examining a large property.” 

“For Trafford, I suppose?” 

“Yes. All my expert work is done for him at 
present.” 

“So I’ve heard, and — oddly enough — I am just 
going up to see him. Do you know whether or not 
he has any place I would fit into?” 

Armi stead gave the speaker a glance as keen as 
it was quick. 

“I should say that there wouldn’t be much diffi- 
culty in finding a place into which to fit a man like 
you,” he answered. “By the by, haven’t you been 
a good deal in Old Mexico?” 

“I have been there for the greater part of the 
last five years.” 

“Prospecting?” 

“Part of the time; at other times connected with 
some large mines.” 

“Where are you in from last ?” 

“The State of Durango.” 

Armistead put his hand on the other’s arm. 

“Don’t go up to see Trafford,” he said. “Come 
and lunch with me.” 

“But—” 

“Don’t you understand? I have something to 


A Meeting — And Its Result. 


3 


propose to you — something to your advantage, as 
the advertisements for missing heirs say.” 

“In that case, I’m at your service,” said Lloyd, 
turning with an air of decision which matched the 
clear-cut, sunburnt face and steady eyes. 

They went to a restaurant near by, where Armi- 
stead called for a private room. Lloyd lifted his 
brows but made no remark, and when they were 
alone the former explained. 

“I never talk business in a public place,” he said, 
“even when it isn’t quite so ‘private and particular’ 
as this.” 

“If the business is private and particular,” said 
Lloyd, “I am afraid I am not the man — ” 

“Oh, yes you are !” Armistead interrupted. “So 
exactly the man that our meeting strikes me in the 
light of a remarkably lucky accident. It’s aston- 
ishing how these accidents happen to me — how peo- 
ple turn up just when I want them! I knew that 
you were the very person I wanted as soon as I re- 
membered your connection with Mexico.” 

“What has that to do with it?” 

“Only this, that I wish you to go there imme- 
diately — with me.” 

“You are going to examine a mine?” 

“Or to recover one — but here comes the waiter! 
We’ll give our order and then you shall hear all 
about it.” 

The order having been given, with great concen- 
tration of attention on Armistead’s part, and great 


4 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

indifference on Lloyd’s, the waiter departed, and 
the successful mining expert, leaning back in his 
chair, looked at the unsuccessful prospector. 

“If you are from the State of Durango,” he said, 
“probably you know the districts of San Andres 
de la Sierra and Topia?” 

“Better than I know the streets of San Francis- 
co,” Lloyd responded. 

“Have you ever heard of the Santa Cruz Mine, 
located somewhere between those two places?” 

“Everybody in that country knows the Santa 
Cruz Mine. It’s nearer Topia than San Andres, 
though, and it can’t be bought.” 

“How do you know that?” 

“From common report. It’s a great ore-producer, 
and there’s no inducement for the owners to sell.” 

“Who are supposed to be the owners ?” 

“It belongs partly, or wholly perhaps, to a woman 
— Doha Beatriz Calderon.” 

“Hum! — What kind of a woman is she?” 

Lloyd lifted his shoulders. 

“Quien sabe!” he said, dropping into a familiar 
phrase. 

“You must have heard something about the owner 
of the richest mine in Durango,” Armistead per- 
sisted. 

Lloyd sought in the depths of his memory for a 
moment, and then produced a nugget of informa- 
tion. 


A Meeting — And Its Result. 5 

“l think I have heard that she is a widow/’ he 
said. 

Armistead shook his head. 

“They may call her so,” he remarked; “but in 
point of fact she is a divorced woman.” 

Floyd stared. 

“Impossible !” he said. “The species doesn’t ex- 
ist in Mexico.” 

“It exists in this case; for the husband was an 
American, who came to the States, got a divorce 
and remarried here.” 

“Do you know him?” 

“I had just left him when I met you.” 

“You don’t mean Trafford?” 

“I mean him exactly. It seems that when he was 
a young fellow, owning no more than his mule and 
saddle, he wandered down into Mexico, prospect- 
ing. Up in the Sierra Madre, back of Culiacan, he 
ran across some extremely rich mines owned by a 
Mexican, who had also a daughter. Trafford was 
always practical, so he made love to the daughter, 
married her and got possession of the mines — as her 
wedding portion, probably.” 

“Then left her where he found her, I suppose?” 

“No, he must have behaved rather decently — at 
first. He brought her with him to San Francisco, 
where, as he states briefly, she cried all the time. So 
he packed her back to her Mexican home, gave her 
an allowance, and proceeded to obtain a divorce. 
He then married the present Mrs. Trafford — wo- 


6 


A Daughter or the Sierra. 


man of fashion, leader of society, all that sort of 
thing — went on, prospered, and became the man 
of millions he is to-day.” 

Lloyd looked the disgust he felt. 

“Did the Mexican woman know that she was 
divorced?” he asked. 

“I can’t say,” Armistead answered; “but there 
seems no particular reason why she should have been 
informed.” 

“Did he return her fortune?” 

Armistead regarded the speaker with a smile. 

“You have been so long out of the world that 
you have become a trifle quixotic,” he observed. “I 
don’t imagine that Trafford ever dreamed of such 
a thing. He kept the fortune to his own great bene- 
fit, but he has always paid regularly the allowance 
of the lady in Mexico. Hence he feels injured, as 
well as exasperated by a difficulty which has arisen.” 

“I hope she has plucked up spirit enough to de- 
mand her own.” 

“I fancy there would never have been any trouble 
with her, but there’s a daughter — ” 

“So he cast off not only his wife but his child !” 

“Be reasonable!” said Armistead a little impa- 
tiently. “What on earth could a man who has it 
in him to rise as Trafford has risen do with a Mexi- 
can wife?” 

“If you fancy that Mexican women are un- 
civilized, let me tell you — ” 

“You don’t need to tell me anything. I know 


A Meeting — And Its Result. 


7 


Mexico — if not as well as you do, at least pretty 
well. And I know that there is no country in the 
world where class distinctions are more marked. 
Well, just understand that we are not talking of 
the daughter of some great hidalgo, with a princely 
estate and a pedigree going back to the conquista- 
dores, but of a woman from the wilds of the Sierra 
Madre, of Maya Indian blood, whose father did not 
even know the value of the mines he possessed, — I 
put it to you, as a man of the world, what could 
Trafford do with such a woman?” 

“He could have been true to her, Maya Indian 
or not, especially since all his fortune is built on hers, 
I should say; but, then, I’m probably quixotic, if 
not idiotic. So go on with your story — what is the 
daughter going to do?” 

“She holds possession of the Santa Cruz Mine 
in the name of her mother, and refuses to recognize 
any right of ownership in Trafford.” 

“Good for her!” 

“Possibly; but not good for Trafford. Conse- 
quently he wants me to go down there and recover 
the mine.” 

“Do you mean to say that he is going to fight 
for it?” 

“We hope that there will be no need to fight, 
although he has papers signed by the father of — 
ah — Doha Beatriz, which establish his title.” 

“I wonder if the father of Doha Beatriz knew 
what he was signing?” 


8 


A Daughter of the: Sie;rra. 


“As you remarked a moment ago, quien sabef 
And I may add that the question doesn’t concern 
us.” 

“Isn’t Trafford rich enough to leave one mine to 
its rightful possessor, who is also his own child ?” 

“You ought to know that no man, according to 
American ideas, is rich enough to give up anything 
he can hold. And there are reasons why Trafford 
wants and needs that mine particularly at the present 
time. I told you that I am just back from Puget 
Sound. Perhaps you’ve heard of the big smelter up 
there, owned by the Puget Sound Reduction Com- 
pany? Well, Trafford is the company — at least he 
controls four-fifths of the stock. Now, there are 
several millions invested in the smelter and the 
railroad which has been built to some mines up 
in the mountains, where it was expected to obtain an 
unlimited supply of ore. But — this is confidential, 
observe — so far from being unlimited the production 
of these mines has proved so extremely limited that 
they are of very little value for supplying the smelt- 
er, which has an enormous capacity. I am just back 
from making an exhaustive examination of them, 
and when Trafford heard my report he simply said : 
‘We must get a supply of ore that can be depended 
on elsewhere or lose our investment.’ Then he told 
me about the Santa Cruz Mine, which must be an 
immense property, containing the very class of ores 
needed.” 


A Meeting — And Its Result. 


9 


“Hasn’t he the whole world to buy ores from for 
his smelter?” 

“They are already buying ores from Australia, 
South America and Mexico; but I don’t need to 
point out that the profit of buying is one thing and 
of owning is another. Trafford has submitted for 
some time to the holding of the Santa Cruz Mine 
by the enterprising young woman in Mexico, but 
now that he needs the ores so badly he doesn’t in- 
tend to submit to it longer. That’s the whole case.” 

“What is he going to do?” 

“He is sending me to Mexico with diplomatic 
powers to negotiate for the recovery of the mine; 
and, as you can be of great assistance to me, I pro- 
pose to take you along.” 

“Thanks! But I don’t care to assist in such a 
business.” 

“Nonsense!” said Armistead, sharply. “What 
are Trafford’s affairs to you? And you will have 
nothing to do with my work.” 

“Why do you want me, then?” 

“I want you because I suppose that you know 
the country thoroughly, its language, its customs, 
not to speak of its topography. And we may make 
the trip profitable in more ways than one. I have 
long had a fancy to go down there to pick up min- 
ing property, but have always lacked time. Now I 
take it for granted that you can put your hand on 
some good prospects — ” 

“On a few, perhaps.” 


10 


A Daughter of thf Sifrra. 


‘‘Well, we can secure them together, and you 
know whether or not my recommendation will help 
to sell them.” 

“I know, of course, that your recommendation 
will sell any thing.” 

“Then don’t turn your back on the opportunity 
I’m offering you — an opportunity to realize a great 
profit from the knowledge of the country your years 
of prospecting in it have given you.” 

“They were pretty hard years,” Lloyd admitted, 
“and I shouldn’t mind realizing something from 
them — for no man knows better than I what a 
country of great chances it is; but if I agree to go, 
you must understand that I’ll have nothing to do 
with robbing those women of their mine by diplo- 
matic or other means.” 

Armistead laughed. 

“My dear fellow,” he said genially, “I assure you 
that I should never think of employing you in any 
diplomatic capacity. And we have no intention of 
using other means.” 


CHAPTER II. 


in the; quebrada. 

PHE tourist who enters Mexico in a Pullman 
car and rolls luxuriously along the great plateau, 
gazing through plate-glass windows at strange 
Oriental-looking cities, at vast haciendas, with 
leagues of fertile plain and the distant Sierra thrust- 
ing its violet peaks into a sky of dazzling sapphire, 
obtains many wonderful and beautiful pictures to 
hang in the chambers of memory ; but he knows lit- 
tle, after all, of this old land, strange as India and 
fascinating as Spain. To him Mexico is a pano- 
rama of brilliant sunshine, white dusty roads, walled 
towns, picturesque campaniles, shadowy arcades 
filled with the varying tide of human life and great 
old churches rich with dim splendors. He does not 
dream that the blue rim of the distant mountain 
range at which he gazes — that range which stretches 
its mighty length along the western side of Mexico 
and bears alone the name of Sierra Madre — marks 
the outline of a world so different from that which 
surrounds him that it might well belong to another 
hemisphere. It is a great world of towering heights 
and majestic forests, of rushing streams and stupen- 
dous gorges, where for hundreds of miles the only 
11 


12 


A Daughter of the: Sie;rra. 


roads are trails; where since the foundation of the 
earth no wheel has ever rolled; where even the 
passes are ten thousand feet above the sea, and 
where in all the wide solitudes Nature reigns su- 
preme, with a wild beauty, a charm of infinite fresh- 
ness such as can be found but seldom now on this 
old, man-trodden globe. 

In this region the traveller journeys on horse- 
back or muleback, instead of in Pullman cars; and 
if he approaches it from the western coast, he soon 
finds himself among heights broken into deep chasms 
or gorges, down which the rivers rush from their 
birthplace in the clouds to their grave in the vast 
Pacific. It is by these tremendous clefts, well 
named in the Spanish tongue quebradas (broken), 
that those who seek the upper world of the great 
Sierra, journey, and, once entered between their 
walls, the wild, almost terrible grandeur, of the way 
increases ydth every onward league. But although 
the mountains are riven apart, as if by some awful 
convulsion of Nature, and tall cliffs tower in austere 
majesty above the narrow pass, filled with the 
sound of roaring, tumbling waters, as the stream 
which holds sovereignty there pours its torrents 
over, under and around the rocks of every conceiv- 
able form and color which lie piled in fantastic 
masses in the bottom of the gorge, there is no desola- 
tion in this strange, beautiful quebrada world. On 
the contrary, the moisture of the river pouring 
downward, and of the clouds sailing in from the 


In the Quebrada. 


13 


ocean, creates a wealth of verdure, as delightful as 
it is rare in a sun-parched land. Immense trees 
spread their wide, green boughs over flashing water ; 
the great shoulders of the hills are clothed with 
luxuriant woods, and the small dwellings of primi- 
tive construction which now and again stand on 
knolls, sufficiently elevated to be secure from rising 
water, are completely embowered in shade, gener- 
ally that of magnificent orange trees. 

The inhabitants of these dwellings are much in 
evidence, passing up and down the quebrada, the 
men with white cotton calsones rolled to their hips, 
leaving their brown, sinewy legs entirely bare; and 
the women with skirts kilted above their slender 
ankles and small feet, for the purpose of wading 
across the tumultuous, but in the dry season mostly 
shallow water. These pedestrians alternate with 
long trains of pack-mules, bearing burdens of all 
kinds, from bales of merchandise to bars of silver 
bullion from the mines in the mountains above, or 
sacks filled with freshly coined dollars from the 
mint of Culiacan ; with trains of diminutive burros, 
also pack-laden, and with horsemen who seem to 
have ridden booted and spurred out of another and 
more picturesque age. 

It was high in the quebrada of the Tamezula 
River that a party of travellers journeying upward 
halted one day for the noon rest. There were in 
the party as many mules and men as usually accom- 
pany persons of importance in these regions, but 


14 A Daughter of the Sierra. 

several features of the outfit would have struck' 
the native eye as unusual and significant of gringos, 
that is to say, of foreigners. For one thing, three 
or four of the mules carried on their aparejos large, 
square modern trunks, such as are seldom used by 
Mexicans; others were loaded with boxes bearing 
signs of ocean freight, and to complete the note of 
strangeness one pack consisted of a tent, which is 
an article almost unknown in Mexico, even in the 
army. 

This tent was not erected at present, however. It 
lay on the ground with the rest of the packs, while 
the animals took their feed by the side of the stream, 
just here swirling over its rocks with some approach 
to tranquillity and the mozos lay near them in vari- 
ous recumbent attitudes, their zerapes making bright 
bits of color against the gray rocks and amid the 
varied greens of the abounding verdure. A few 
yards distant a different group reclined under the 
shade of one of the great trees which abound here — 
a group consisting of a middle-aged man, two 
younger men and a lady, the latter youthful and 
extremely pretty, with an indefinable air of the 
world in her appearance which contrasted piquantly 
with the wild picturesqueness of her surroundings. 

Not that it should be supposed that she was not 
attired with perfect appropriateness to these sur- 
roundings. It was the very perfection of her cos- 
tume with regard to time and place, of the well-cut 
Tiabit, fitted as if moulded to the lines of the slender 


In this Quebrada. 


15 


figure, with its skirt short enough to show the 
trimly-bootecl foot, and the practical simplicity of 
the hat of soft, gray felt and veil of silvery tissue, 
which marked her difference from the women to be 
met now and then on the road wrapped to the 
eyes in their rebozos , sitting in saddles like 
arm-chairs; helpless, ungraceful masses of dra- 
pery, strikingly suggestive of the woman of the 
Oriental countries. This was a type of the modern 
woman, not only ready to go anywhere and do 
anything which duty or inclination demanded, but 
knowing with a perfect instinct and taste how to 
carry the charm of her sex with her even into ways 
of adventure and places of hardship. 

For to say that Isabel Rivers possessed the poise 
of the ordinary American girl — great as that un- 
doubtedly is — would be to state inadequately the 
fact that she was a subtle combination of girl and 
woman of the world, which is a combination as un- 
usual as it is attractive. Youth, even when most 
carefully trained and passed through the best 
moulds, is generally crude, but there had never been 
any crudeness about Miss Rivers. Those who re- 
membered her as a slim, brilliant-eyed child, with 
even then a remarkable charm of intelligence and 
distinction, were not surprised that after certain 
unusual advantages of education, travel and life, she 
had become one of those exceptional women whose 
power of attraction is not limited to men, but whom 
all classes of humanity find fascinating. 


16 


A Daughter or the: Sie;rra. 


That the two young men now lying at her feet 
as she sat enthroned between the gnarled roots of 
the tree — Thornton, a graduate of Columbia, sigh- 
ing for the flesh-pots of New York, and Mackenzie, 
a young Mexicanized Scotchman — found her so, 
was patent to the most superficial observation. 
It is likely that under any circumstances this would 
have been the case ; but when, after long social exile 
in the wilds of the Sierra Madre, they met their 
chief in Culiacan, on his return from the States, ac- 
companied by this captivating daughter, there was 
only one result possible; and that result achieved 
itself, to employ a French idiom, in the shortest 
possible time. It was a result which surprised 
no one. Mr. Rivers, accustomed to seeing men 
bowled over like nine-pins by his daughter’s charms, 
regarded the speedy and complete subjugation of 
his staff with the indifference with which we regard 
the usual and the expected; while to Isabel Rivers 
herself homage had long since become merely the 
atmosphere in which she was accustomed to live 
and move. Regarded superficially at least, this 
had not spoiled her. In manner, she was delight- 
fully simple; with an exquisite quality of human 
sympathy, to which was owing a large part of her 
charm. 

At present it was evident that she was less in- 
terested in her two admirers than in the surpassing 
picturesqueness of the scenes around her. For two 
days she had been riding in a state of constantly in- 


In ths Quebrada. 


17 


creasing admiration through the deep gorge, her 
eyes shining with delight behind the silvery folds 
of her veil, as the wild loveliness of the way opened 
before her. 

“I could never have imagined that there was 
anything in the world so beautiful, which was not 
also famous,” she was saying now, as she glanced 
from towering rock to flashing water. “People cross 
oceans and continents to see things less wonderful ; 
but I doubt if any one, outside of the people who 
live here, ever heard of this.” 

“You may be quite sure,” said Thornton, “that 
no one ever did. And we who live here don’t, as 
a rule, go into raptures over the quebrada ; eh, Mac- 
kenzie?” 

Mackenzie shook his head. 

“Our sentiments concerning it can be pretty much 
summed up in the opinion of the arrieros — muy 
mala la quebrada!” he said. “Of course,” looking 
around dispassionately, “one knows that it is very 
picturesque, and — er — ” 

“Sublime, grand, wildly beautiful, — those are the 
adjectives appropriate to the quebrada,” Thornton 
prompted patronizingly. 

“There’s another still more appropriate, and that 
is rough — in the superlative degree,” said Mr. 
Rivers. “If we could only get a railroad in here — ” 

“Papa, the suggestion is a sacrilege!” 

“Sacrilege or not, my dear, it is a thing I should 
like amazingly to see; and so would everyone else, 


18 A Daughter op thp SiprrA. 

except the freighters who are making fortunes out 
of our necessities. Think of the increased profits in 
our ore heaps if we had cheap freight to the ocean !” 
he went on, addressing his subordinates. “And, 
by the by, have I told you that I’ve some hope of 
seeing a railroad here?” 

“No!” said Thornton, with quick interest. 
“How?” 

“I heard in San Francisco that the Puget Sound 
Reduction Company want ores, and that they are 
coming into this country after them. I am inclined 
to believe there is truth in the report because I met 
Armistead, who is Trafford’s expert, in Guaymas, 
and he told me he expected to see me in Topia. Now, 
if those people come into these mountains and buy 
mines they will build a railroad at once — no freight- 
ing with mules for eight months, and being tied up 
by high water in the quebrada during four, for 
them !” 

“Not much !” Thornton agreed. “Armistead !” he 
added, reminiscently. “It’s astonishing how that 
fellow has succeeded. We were in the same class 
in the Mining School, and I don’t remember that 
he displayed any particular talent. It’s all a matter 
of getting the confidence of the capitalists and syn- 
dicates; but how did he manage it?” 

“Generally managed through personal influence 
and connection,” said Mr. Rivers, who knew where- 
of he spoke. “Lloyd is with him,” he added care- 
lessly. 


In the: Que:bradA. 10 

“He couldn’t get a better guide for the Sierra,” 
said Thornton. “Lloyd knows it thoroughly. He 
will do the work, and Armistead will get the credit.” 

“That’s how it generally is,” said Mackenzie, in 
the tone of one disgusted by the ways of an unsatis- 
factory world. 

Miss Rivers regarded the speakers meditatively 
with her beautiful eyes, which were of a golden 
brown tint, and singularly expressive. 

“I remember those men — we talked with them 
one evening in the patio of the hotel,”’ she said. 
“They struck me very differently.” 

“They couldn’t possibly have struck you other- 
wise,” said Thornton. “They are very different; 
so different that their conjunction is rather odd. 
I like Lloyd.” 

Miss Rivers smiled. 

“The inference is plain. Well, I too liked Lloyd 
— if he was the tall, sunburnt one; but if they are 
on their way to bring a railroad into this marvellous 
quebrada, I hope they will both be lost.” 

“It’s possible that they may be — they were going 
to visit some mines in the mountains of Sonora, 
where the Yaquis are pretty troublesome just now,” 
said Mr. Rivers. “But if they aren’t lost, they were 
to follow us by the next steamer.” 

“In that case they’ll be along soon,” observed 
Mackenzie; “for I heard the day we left Culiacan 
that the Mazatlan had arrived at Altata.” 

“If they leave Culiacan promptly and ride fast 


20 A Daughter of the: Sie;rra. 

they may overtake us,” said Mr. Rivers; “for our 
progress since we entered the quebrada has been 
more loitering than travelling.” 

“I call it perfect,” said his daughter. “Nothing 
could be more charming than such loitering along 
such a way. I am so glad I came with you, papa ! 
I have never enjoyed anything more in my life.” 

“I hope you will remain in that frame of mind, 
my dear,” remarked Mr. Rivers, a little sceptically. 
“But it is barely possible that six months in Topia 
may prove something of a strain even to your love 
of novelty and the picturesque; and since the que- 
brada becomes impassable when the rains begin, it 
will be at least that long before you can get away.” 

“I shall not want to get away,” she declared. “I 
feel as if I were going into some wild and wonder- 
ful fastness of Nature, far and high in the hills, 
with the gateway closing behind me.” 

“That’s exactly what you are doing,” said Mac- 
kenzie, practically; “for when the river rises the gate 
is certainly closed. Nobody goes up and down the 
quebrada then. But here comes Lucio at last to 
say that lunch is ready.” 

“Y a estd la oomida, Senorita ” said Lucio — who 
was a slim young Mexican, attired in the national 
costume, — approaching the group. 

They gathered around the provision chest, on 
the flat top of which a rather elaborate repast, 
considering time and place, had been arranged. It 
was all delightfully gypsy-like; and as Isabel Rivers 


In the: Quebrada. 


21 


sat on a great stone, while she ate her chicken and 
tongue and drank her California claret, with a can- 
opy of green leaves rustling overhead and the crystal 
river swirling by over its stones, her face expressed 
her delight in the eloquent fashion some faces have. 

“Like a picnic ?” she said in reply to a suggestion 
of Thornton’s. “Not in the least. A picnic is mere- 
ly playing at what w T e are doing. This is the real 
thing — the thing for which I have always longed — 
to go away and live for a time remote from what 
we call civilization, in the heart of Nature. And 
here we have not only the heart of Nature but an 
Oriental, Arabian-Nights-like charm in all our sur- 
roundings. Look at that now !” she lifted her hand 
and pointed. “Doesn’t it take one back any number 
of centuries? And could anything be more pictur- 
esque ?” 

Her companions turned their heads, following 
with their glances the direction of the pointing 
hand, just as a train of horsemen and pack-mules 
came splashing across the ford below them. They 
made, as Miss Rivers said, a strikingly picturesque 
effect, and one altogether in keeping with the wild 
scenery of the quebrada. At the head of the train 
rode a group consisting of three men, dressed as 
Mexican caballeros dress for the road : in high boots 
of yellow leather, breeches, and braided jacket of 
cloth or buckskin, and broad sombreros, with their 
silver-mounted trappings glittering in the sunlight, 
and a woman, who sat her horse in better fashion 


22 A Daughter of the: Sierra. 

than most of the feminine equestrians who travel 
in these regions, but whose costume lacked the per- 
fect adaptability to its purpose of that of her male 
companions. It was, in fact, extremely ungraceful ; 
for she wore simply a riding-skirt over her ordi- 
nary dress ; and above a blue rebozo , wound like an 
Eastern yashmak around her head and neck and 
partly covering her face, a sombrero of rough straw. 

“By Jove!” said Mr. Rivers, “that’s the conducta 
of the Santa Cruz Mine; and there’s the Gerente, 
Don Mariano Vallejo himself.” 

He rose as he spoke and went quickly forward 
as, with jingling spurs, the cavalcade came riding 
toward them. 

“Don Mariano!” he cried. “Como le va listed?” 

“A — h, Don Roberto!” exclaimed Don Mariano, 
in a high key of pleasure and surprise. 

He sprang from his horse, and threw his arm 
around Mr. Rivers, who promptly returned the em- 
brace. -They patted each other cordially on the 
shoulder; and then the Mexican, drawing back, 
regarded the other with a smile. He was a bronze- 
faced, gray-haired man of much dignity of appear- 
ance and bearing, with a lean, muscular figure, 
strongly marked features and eagle-like glance. 

“Me alegro mucho de verle d Vd.” he said. 
“Cuando volvio Vd.?” 

“I returned a few days ago,” Mr. Rivers answered 
(also in Spanish) ; “and I am on my way up to 
Topia, with my daughter. And you?” 


In the Ouebrada. 


23 


“I have been down to Culiacan, to lay in supplies 
for the mine and mill before the rainy season/' Don 
Mariano replied ; '‘and I am returning now with the 
conducta” 

“What is the amount of your conducta this 
month ?” 

“Thirty thousand dollars. It is not bad.'* 

“It is vers* good. I wish the Caridad would do 
as well. But whom have you with you — your 
daughter ?” 

“Xo.” Don Mariano turned toward the femin- 
ine figure in the shrouding rebozo. “This is Dona 
Victoria Calderon, the daughter of the owner of the 
Santa Cruz Mine.” 

Mr. Rivers acknowledged the introduction in a 
manner which gratified his own daughter's sense 
of the appropriate, and then suggested that the 
party should halt and take lunch with his own. 

Generally speaking. Mexicans are as ready to ac- 
cept as to offer hospitality, so Don Mariano imme- 
diately replied that they would be happy to accept 
the imitation of his gracious and highly esteemed 
friend. There was a general dismounting, and 
while one of the group communicated the order to 
the rest of the train behind them, the others ad- 
vanced to the shady spot where Miss Rivers and 
her companions rose to receive them. 


CHAPTER HI. 


DONA VICTORIA. 

THE Mexican girl took off her sombrero and 
* threw back her rebozo as she came under the 
thick, spreading shade of the giant tree. The dusky 
blue folds of the scarf lay around her neck and en- 
hanced the picturesqueness of the head rising above 
it. 

“What a magnificent creature !” Miss Rivers 
whispered to Thornton, and indeed the adjective 
was the only one which could fitly be applied to 
Victoria Calderon. She was tall, vigorous, supple 
yet straight as an arrow, and any one familiar with 
the fine type of the Mayas, who are the original race 
inhabiting this region, would have recognized their 
traits in her length of limb, her stately bearing, and 
the free grace of her movements. Her head, now 
covered only with the abundant masses of her curl- 
ing black hair, was set on a neck the lines of which 
would have delighted the eye of an artist; and her 
face, with its fine straight features, its large dark 
eyes under strongly marked brows, and its skin 
of creamy softness, was more than handsome. There 
was no trace of shyness in her manner. She re- 
turned Miss Rivers’ salutation in a voice full of ex- 


24 


Dona Victoria. 


25 


quisite modulations while her gaze dwelt on the 
American girl with a scrutiny of the frankest curios- 
ity. 

It was a very striking contrast which the young 
women made, as they sat down together — the loveli- 
ness of the one, so delicate, elusive, changeful, bril- 
liant, so stamped like her dress with the fashion 
of the world; the beauty of the other belonging to 
the heroic order of classic sculpture and primitive 
races, — a type altogether in harmony with the 
scenes around them and suggestive of all things 
fresh and sylvan. It was natural that there should 
have been little conversation between them at first; 
but after dinner was over, and the men of the party 
stretched themselves out comfortably, with their 
cigars and cigarettes, to talk ores, Miss Rivers in- 
vited her companion to share her seat among the 
great roots, and proceeded to sound the gulf which 
she felt instinctively lay between them. Her Span- 
ish was sufficient for practical conversational pur- 
poses, and she smiled a little as she found herself 
beginning a very direct catechism. 

“You live beyond here, in the Sierra, do you 
not?” she asked. 

“Yes, senorita,” Victoria replied, with discour- 
aging brevity. 

“Not in a town like Topia, to which we are go- 
ing?" 

“No, senorita. My home is ten leagues from 
Canelas, which is the town nearest to us. We are 
in the midst of the Sierra — pura Sierra,” 


26 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


“Do you not find it very lonely?” 

The girl looked surprised. 

“I have never known any other life, and there 
is always much to do,” she said. 

“Surely not much for you to do?” 

“For me, certainly. It is I who order everything 
on the hacienda and at the mine.” 

“You!” It was an exclamation of astonishment 
which Miss Rivers could not restrain, but Victoria 
regarded her with the same calm simplicity. 

“For my mother,” she explained. 

“But” — the other hesitated an instant — “have 
you no men related to you to relieve you of such 
work?” 

“Don Mariano yonder is our cousin, and he is the 
administrador of the property; but he takes his or- 
ders from us — that is, from me.” 

Miss Rivers glanced at the bronzed, middle-aged 
man to whom at this moment her father was listen- 
ing with an air of deference as he talked, gesticulat- 
ing with a slender brown hand, holding a cigarette 
in its fingers. When her gaze returned to the girl 
beside her, there was incredulity mingled with its 
wonder. 

“It is very strange!” she said involuntarily. “You 
are very young.” 

“Yes,” Victoria answered, as one who acknowl- 
edges an undeniable disadvantage. “But I shall grow 
older.” 


Dona Victoria. 


27 


“There is no doubt of that,” Isabel laughed. 
“But, as a rule, women don't look forward with 
pleasure to growing older. And meanwhile what 
good do you have of your youth — which is the sea- 
son of enjoyment?” 

“What good do I have of my youth?” the Mexi- 
can girl repeated in a puzzled tone. “Why, all the 
good possible. What more should I want ?” 

Evidently the gulf was very deep — deeper than 
she had imagined, Isabel thought. She paused be- 
fore making another sounding. 

“You have no society,” she said at length. 

“Oh, yes, we have society!” Victoria replied 
quickly. “We go to Topia and to Canelas for the 
fiestas. And our friends come to see us.” 

“But that can not be all! You sometimes go 
away from the Sierra — you travel, perhaps?” 

The other shook her head. 

“No, we never go away,” she answered. “We 
were born in the Sierra. Our home and our prop- 
erty are there. Why should we go away?” 

“Why?” Miss Rivers found herself guilty of 
the futility of attempting to enlighten the ignorance 
which could ask such a question. “To see the world, 
to educate yourself by travel, to enlarge your knowl- 
edge of men and things, to enjoy life while you are 
young, and — and, oh, for many things !” 

She ended abruptly, for a change came over the 
face before her. It grew cold, grave, almost repel- 
lent. 


28 


A Daughter or the Sierra. 


“My mother went away once/’ the girl said ; “and 
she has told me that it was terrible as death, her 
longing to return to the Sierra. Nothing would 
take her away again. And I — I know, too, what it 
is to go away. I was sent once to Durango that I 
might go to school, but I pined so that they thought 
I would die, and they were forced to send me back 
to the Sierra. It is so that we who have our home 
there feel.” 

“I have heard of such feelings,” said Miss Rivers 
slowly. She thought of the Swiss soldiers in for- 
eign lands, dying of homesickness for their high 
green valleys and snowy peaks, their pure, clear 
mountain air. Was it strange that this daughter of 
the Sierra, nurtured amid the wild beauty which 
had power so deeply to impress even a stranger, 
could not live away from the great heights, could 
not feel anything worth gaining which was to be 
bought at the price of exile from them? There is 
nothing of what is called civilization in such a 
feeling. It is, on the contrary, one of the deepest, 
as one of the strongest instincts of primitive men, 
which civilization is doing its utmost to obliterate, 
and, as a rule, it only survives among simple and 
secluded people. In such form as this Isabel 
Rivers, a modern of the moderns herself, had never 
before encountered it, and her interest was deeply 
stirred. She possessed — it was indeed the great 
secret of her charm — that exquisite quality of sym- 
pathy to which “nothing that is human is strange” ; 


Dona Victoria. 


29 


and just now she felt strongly inclined to make a 
thorough, sympathetic study of this, to her, new 
type, — this girl, with the form of a Greek goddess 
and the eyes of a woodland fawn, of whom in a 
deeper than the Wordsworthian sense it might be 
truly said that Nature had made “a lady of her 
own.” 

“It is not strange,” she observed gently, after a 
moment’s silence, “that you should be strongly at- 
tached to anything so wonderfully beautiful as this 
country of yours. I, who have only just entered it, 
feel its fascination already. I am afraid that all 
other scenery will seem tame to me hereafter.” 

It was now Victoria’s turn to show incredulity. 

“Do you mean that you like the quebrada?” she 
asked. 

“Like it !” Miss Rivers called up all her Spanish 
to enable her to express her sentiments. “It is the 
most marvellous, the most wildly beautiful thing I 
have ever seen!” she declared. “The journey 
through it would alone repay me for coming to 
Mexico.” 

“How strange!” said the Mexican girl wonder- 
ingly. “Our ladies all dread the quebrada and find 
it terrible to travel here. They would rather stay 
down in the tierra calient e through all the heat than 
come up to the Sierra by this way. And you — a 
gringa — you like it !” 

Miss Rivers smiled. 


30 A Daughter or the: Sie:rra. 

“I like it because I have been so differently 
brought up,” she said. “Modern women — some of 
us at least — enjoy adventure and hardship and many 
things which women used to shrink from. I am not 
one of those who carry this to an extreme — who 
like, for example, to share their sports with men, — 
but I like all things wild and fresh and picturesque 
and out of the beaten way; and the quebrada is all 
of that, you know.” 

“But you look so — so fine,” the other persisted, 
her eyes still fastened in wonder on the face and 
figure before her. “I could never have imagined 
you would care for such things. When I saw you I 
wondered what you were doing here, and I thought 
how disgusted you must be.” 

“Well, you see you should not judge by appear- 
ances. I may look fine as you say; but if I could 
not, perhaps, endure as much hardship as you can, I 
am sure that I would enjoy all that I could endure. 
If we are going to travel up the quebrada together 
you will see.” 

“We shall travel together until to-morrow, and 
then our ways separate. We will take the quebrada 
which goes to Canelas, and you will go on to 
Topia.” 

“There are different quebradas, then?” 

“Surely. Every stream has its own quebrada; 
but most of them come into this, because it is the 
quebrada of the Tamezula, the largest river in our 
part of the Sierra.” 


Dona Victoria. 


31 


“Miss Rivers” — it was Thornton’s voice speaking 
beside her, — “your mule is ready for you. We 
are about to start. And what do - you think of 
the heiress of the Sierra?” he asked a moment later, 
as he put her into her saddle. “I have been watch- 
ing your efforts to make conversation, and felt very 
sorry for you. I know how hard it is to talk to these 
women.” 

“Your sorrow was unnecessary,” said Isabel, as 
she took her reins. “I have been very much inter- 
ested, and I am going to delve farther into the na- 
ture and experience of Doha — what is her name?” 

“Victoria. It is regal enough to suit her, isn’t 
it?” 

“I did not know that it was a Spanish name.” 

“Oh, yes! quite ordinary; and the masculine 
form, Victorio, still more so.” 

“Well, I find Doha Victoria not only interesting, 
but (to me) an entirely original type. Don’t be sur- 
prised if I devote myself to her exclusively until we 
separate.”-/ 

“Oh, but I say! — you don’t really mean to do 
that?” 

“I really and certainly do. Why, it is a chance 
I would not miss for anything. She belongs to the 
country, she is a product of its influences, she is in 
every respect a child of the Sierra — ” 

“And, therefore, she hasn’t three ideas in com- 
mon with you.” 

“But I don’t want people who have ideas in com- 


32 A Daughter or thr Sirrra. 

mon with me. I want people who can give me 
something new, fresh, original. There she is, 
mounted and about to start. Good-bye ! I am going 
to join her.” 

“Well, I’m — blessed!” Thornton said to himself, 
as he fell back and watched Miss Rivers ride sharp- 
ly forward. There seemed nothing else to say in 
presence of a taste so eccentric as that which could 
prefer to himself and the opportunity to converse 
agreeably about social events “at home,” and people 
whom they both knew, a Mexican girl, ignorant of 
everything that anybody could possibly care to talk 
about. There was only one explanation, however, 
which quickly occurred to his mind. 

“Miss Rivers wants to improve her Spanish,” he 
said, turning to Mackenzie, who came up just then; 
“so she is cultivating the lady of the Santa Cruz. 
Fortunately, the quebrada does not admit of two 
people riding together very long, and we have to be 
thankful that she hasn’t taken a fancy to a Mexican 
man!” 


CHAPTER IV. 


AT GUASIMITTAS. 

\| IGHT was fast closing down on the quebrada; 

^ but the two horsemen, followed by a mozo and 
pack-mule, who found themselves deep amid its 
wildest scenes, could perceive no sign of the shelter 
which they had expected to make. All day they had 
been riding, with heights of savage grandeur tower- 
ing higher and higher above them ; with the unceas- 
ing roar of rushing, falling water in their ears ; with 
the rock-strewn way growing constantly rougher 
as the mountains drew nearer together, until the 
pass became no more than a narrow, winding de- 
file, which constantly seemed to come to an end in 
the face of some tremendous, jutting cliff. Both 
men were well accustomed to hardship, but they had 
ridden with little rest since early morning. They 
were tired, and conscious of tired animals under 
them; they were wet from continual fording of the 
stream, where even the most careful rider and sure- 
footed mule were likely at any moment to find them- 
selves in a deep hole among the rocks over which 
the torrent foamed; and, besides being tired and 
wet, they were extremely hungry. Under these cir- 
cumstances it was not surprising that patience 
33 


34 


A Daughter of the Sierra. 


finally began to appear somewhat less than a virtue. 

“I thought I knew something of rough country,” 
Armistead remarked; “but this exceeds anything 
I’ve ever seen. And this trail we are following is 
called a road, I suppose!” 

“Why not ?” Lloyd asked. “Why shouldn’t it be 
the King’s Highway — el camino real — if it likes? 
It’s all the highway there is.” 

“I’ve been expecting it to turn into a squirrel track 
and run up a tree, but I begin to think now that it’s 
we who are up the tree. What are we going to do 
if we can’t make this place we are looking for?” 

“We must make it; for there’s no other place 
where we can get anything for our animals to eat.” 

“And how much farther do you think we have to 
go?” 

“Probably a league.” 

“A league! Why you told me this morning it 
was only ten or twelve leagues from the place where 
we spent the night!” 

“So it was, but you have learned what leagues 
are like in the quebrada ; and we took a pretty long 
noon rest, you remember.” 

Armistead did remember, and, having had much 
experience in wild places and rough countries, said 
nothing more. So they rode on in silence for some 
time, while the strip of sky far above their heads, 
which during the day had burned with the blue fire 
of a jewel, now took a tender violet tint; while the 
stars — wonderfully large and golden in these high 


At GuasimiUvAS. 


35 


tropical altitudes — began to look down on them. In 
the depths of the great earth-rift twilight passes into 
night even more quickly than elsewhere; and the 
outlines of rocks and trees began to assume a cer- 
tain indistinctness, while the voice of the river 
seemed to take a higher note as it poured down- 
ward over its rocks. A wonderful Alpine fresh- 
ness came into the air, together with a thousand 
wild perfumes and scent of green, growing things. 

Presently Armistead spoke again. 

“I shouldn’t be surprised if we came upon the 
Rivers party at this Guasi — whatever the name of 
the place is. You know they told us at Tamezula 
that the Gerente of the Caridad and his party had 
passed up the quebrada just before us.” 

“If they maintain their distance in advance of 
us, instead of being at Guasimillas, they ought to 
reach Topia to-night.” 

“You forget that Miss Rivers is with them. It’s 
not possible with a woman to make such day’s 
marches as we have made. I’ll wager a good deal 
we find them at this place.” 

“The hope ought to put fresh spirit into you, then, 
if not into your mule. I observe that you are much 
interested in Miss Rivers.” 

“Who wouldn’t be interested in her? Do you 
know that she is perhaps the most admired girl in 
California?” 

“I didn’t know it, but I haven’t much trouble in 
believing it. She has ‘a way with her,’ as the Irish 


36 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

say, that tends toward fascination. Even a case- 
hardened chap like myself is conscious of it.” 

“Oddly enough, I never met her until we ran 
across them the other day at Guaymas,” Armistead 
went on. “It’s a queer whim that brings her to 
this country — a girl with the world, so to speak, 
at her feet and hosts of admirers and friends all 
over America and Europe, — but rare good luck for 
me. It’s positively amazing” — Lloyd was by this 
time accustomed to the note of self-complacency in 
the voice — “how my luck holds!” 

“You consider the presence of Miss Rivers here 
as a proof of it?” 

“Of course. Any one might see that the presence 
of such a woman in such a place lends a flavor to 
life it would otherwise lack; and equally, of course, 
the thing works the other way also.” 

“You mean that your presence will lend a flavor 
to life for Miss Rivers?” 

“I shouldn’t put it exactly that way, but neces- 
sarily she will appreciate a man out of her own 
world more when she meets him here than if she 
met him at home.” 

“No doubt,” — the assent was sincere, if a little 
dry. “Things do arrange themselves well for your 
benefit, one must confess.” 

“Always!” Armistead agreed, with the satisfac- 
tion which a prosperous man finds it hard to sup- 
press, and which other men, especially the less pros- 
perous, are likely to find so irritating. “Things never 


At Guasimittas. 


37 


fail to come my way just at the time I want them, 
and I have a pretty strong impression that they 
will continue to do so.” 

Lloyd made no response to this confident forecast, 
but as they rode on in the starlight a dim memory 
of old classic stories and ancient superstitions came 
to him. He thought of the Greek king casting his 
most precious jewel into the sea to propitiate the 
gods who had overwhelmed him with continued 
good fortune and avert the inevitable hour of dis- 
aster. There seemed a certain absurdity in as- 
sociating these memories with the man beside him, 
typical product of the hard, material, modern 
world. Yet, if the ancient gods are dead, who 
knows better than the man of to-day, whose only 
god after himself is Tuck, that this strange power 
or influence, on which no one can confidently reckon, 
may change in a moment, and that to fight against it 
is like swimming against the ocean tide ? Sooner or 
later such a luckless swimmer goes under and is 
heard of no more. It was possible that in the great 
Sierra, towering in austere majesty before them, 
failure was awaiting this man who so confident- 
ly boasted of never having known it; and who by 
such boast, an old Greek would have believed, in- 
curred the certain withdrawal of the fortune in 
which he trusted. This was the thought which 
flitted across Lloyd’s mind, as if inspired by the 
ceaseless chant of the river beside them, or by 
the mystery of the night, so full of the suggestion 


38 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


of ancient memories. But he held his peace; and 
presently, just as his keen eye caught something like 
the gleam of a star in the depths of the gorge ahead 
of them, the mozo behind spoke : 

“Look, senor! Yonder is Guasimillas.” 

“So it is,” Lloyd said to Armistead. “We’re all 
right now.” 

As they rode on, splashing across still another 
ford, the light enlarged rapidly, and they soon per- 
ceived that it was a camp-fire, around which a con- 
siderable number of men and mules were gathered. 

“The Rivers party!” Armistead said. 

“No,” Lloyd disagreed. “That is not likely to 
be so large. What train is this?” he asked of one 
of the men around the fire. 

“The conducta of the Santa Cruz Mine, senor,” 
the man replied. 

' “Talking of coincidences, what do you think of 
that?” Lloyd asked, as they rode onward. “The 
conducta — that is, the bullion-train — of the Santa 
Cruz Mine! What particular phase of your good 
luck do you consider this meeting an indication of?” 

“Of the phase that I shall probably be directing the 
next trip it makes,” Armistead answered, with a 
laugh. “But I thought we had reached our desti- 
nation.” 

“So we have: here’s the house.” 

They rode under the overhanging shade of trees, 
and dismounted before a house of more pretension 
than most of the quebrada residences; an adobe 


At GuasimitivAS. 


39 


structure, with a long, partially enclosed corridor in 
front, instead of the usual ramada. In this corridor 
one or two lamps were burning; a table, covered 
with a cloth and bearing some dishes, stood; while 
various figures, both masculine and feminine, were 
moving about; and as the newcomers rode up a 
middle-aged man came forward to meet them. 

“Ah, Don Pablo ! — como estd Vd.f” said Lloyd, 
putting out his hand. 

It was dark under the trees, but Don Pablo knew 
the voice. 

“It is Don Felipe !” he announced, delightedly. 
“Don Felipe himself! A thousand welcomes, senor. 
I knew you would come back, although you told us 
you were going away to stay.” 

“Yes, I am back,” Lloyd answered. “And you 
are well? and Dona Maria? and all the family? 
Good! This is my friend, Senor Armistead, — an- 
other Americano. You can give us food for our- 
selves and our horses — pronto ?” 

“All that I have is yours, senor, and you shall be 
served as soon as possible; but there are many peo- 
ple here to-night, and my wife and daughter have 
their hands full.” 

“Who are the people ?” 

“The Gerente of the Caridad, with a party, senor ; 
and the administrador of the Santa Cruz, with his 
conduct a.” 

“We passed the conducta out yonder, and — but 
what is that?” 


40 


A Daughter of thf Sierra. 


“It is the ladies in hiierta , senor, singing.’’ 

“The ladies?” 

“Doha Victoria Calderon and the daughter of the 
Gerente of the Caridad.” 

Lloyd turned to his companion. 

“Do you hear that?” he asked. 

“The singing? Certainly,” Armistead answered. 
“What does he say about it ?” 

“He says that the singers are Miss Rivers and 
Doha Victoria Calderon.” 

“Doha— who?” 

“The daughter of the owner of the Santa Cruz 
Mine, — if you understand that better.” 

Armistead stared. 

“You don’t mean it!” he said. 

“It does seem like overdoing the coincidence busi- 
ness,” Lloyd admitted. “But since things always 
turn up when you want them, and it’s to be sup- 
posed that you want Doha Victoria, she has only 
followed the rule in obligingly turning up.” 

“Rather prematurely,” Armistead returned. “I 
could have waited for the pleasure of meeting her; 
but, after all, I suppose it is a lucky accident. She 
doesn’t know who I am or why I’m here, and this 
meeting will give me a chance to study her a little. 
We’ll wash our faces and join them.” 

A little later they came upon a pretty scene in 
the hiierta. The aspect of this charming place — a 
grove of orange-trees, forming delightful vistas for 
the eye, all green and gold in daylight and full of 


At Guasimillas. 


41 


shadowy mystery at night — had so enchanted Miss 
Rivers that she insisted upon her tent being pitched 
here. A moon but little past the full was now risen 
over the heights and pour.ed its radiance into the 
quebrada, showing every fold of the great hills, 
flashing on the swift current of the crystal river, and 
making a fairy lace-work of silvery lights and black 
shadows in the wide alleys of the huerta. The white 
canvas of the tent shone like snow under the broad 
boughs of glossy foliage; and before its door, over 
which a Moorish lantern hung, with the light 
gleaming jewel-like through ruby glass, a group was 
gathered in various easy attitudes — Miss Rivers, 
Doha Victoria, Thornton and Mackenzie, on bright- 
colored blankets and cushions; Mr. Rivers and Don 
Mariano a little withdrawn to one side, and more 
sedately seated on chairs brought from the house. 

Lloyd and Armistead, as they approached under 
the trees, paused at sight of this group; struck not 
so much by its general picturesqueness as by the 
central figure on which the moonlight fell most 
broadly, — the figure of the Mexican girl, who, as 
she sat in the lustrous radiance, with a guitar in her 
hands, seemed endowed with a beauty altogether 
marvellous. She was singing at the moment, and 
what she sang was “La Golondrina,” — that sweetest 
and saddest of Spanish airs, the very cry of an ex- 
ile’s broken heart : 

Adonde ira, veloz y fatigada, 

La golondrina que de aqui se va, 

O si en el viento se hallard estraviada 
Buscando abrigo y no lo encontrara. 


42 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


There was a pause, in which no one stirred; and 
then, like honey dropping from the honeycomb, the 
low, rich notes fell again on the listener’s ears : 

Av.e querida, amada peregrina, 

Mi corazon al tuyo estrechare 
Oire tu canto, tierna golondrina, 

Recordare mi patria y llorar6. 

With a cadence full of tenderness and pathos, the 
voice died into silence over the last words ; and after 
a moment it was Miss Rivers who spoke: 

“I never heard those words of ‘La Golondrina’ 
before. They are exquisite. And one might fancy 
that you had been an exile like Aben-Hamed in the 
other version, senorita, — you sing them so feel- 
ingly.” 

“I have been enough of an exile to understand 
them, senorita,” Victoria answered, in a voice al- 
most as musical as her singing tones ; “but I learned 
these words from my mother, who has felt all that 
they express.” 

“Why, Lloyd — Armistead !” Mr. Rivers sud- 
denly perceived the two figures now advancing from 
the shadows. “So you two fellows have caught up 
with us !” 

“It hasn’t been very hard to do,” Lloyd remarked 
as they shook hands. “Your progression seems to 
have been most leisurely.” 

“Why not? Haven’t we left the Land of Hurry 
behind? Isabel, you remember Mr. Armistead and 
Mr. Lloyd? And we have some Mexican friends 
with us. Lloyd, you know Don Mariano Vallejo, 


At Guasimittas. 


43 


of course? Don Mariano,” — lapsing into Spanish 
— “let me introduce Mr. Armistead, a distinguished 
mining expert from the States, come to examine 
the mineral resources of your country in the in- 
terests of capitalists. And this is the Senorita Doha 
Victoria Calderon. Doha Victoria, these senores 
Americanos desire to place themselves at your feet.” 

It was all over presently — the hand-shaking, 
bowing, compliments; and the senores Americanos 
dropped into their places, — Armistead by the side 
of Miss Rivers, and Lloyd near Thornton, who 
expressed his pleasure at seeing him again. 

“I was afraid you had grown disgusted and left 
us,” he said. “I’m glad to see you haven’t. There 
are great chances here, once this region is opened 
up ; and you have spent too much time in the Sierra 
to let other men come in and win the prizes.” 

“They are likely to do that any way,” Lloyd an- 
swered. “I have long since made up my mind that 
I’m one of the unlucky dogs of the world, who win 
no prizes.” * 

“It’s your own fault if you are — but it doesn’t 
look like it just now. To have got hold of Traf- 
ford’s expert is pretty good luck.” 

“The boot is on the other leg — he has got hold 
of me.” 

“Whichever leg it is on, you can make use of 
him, can’t you? He’s here to look up mines, isn’t 
he?” 

“To some extent,” 


44 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

“Oh, I’m not asking you to violate confidence! 
One knows the mystery in which these gilt-edged 
experts enwrap their business. Diplomatists settling 
the affairs of nations aren’t in it with them. Some 
day I intend to begin to put on such airs myself. 
It seems the only road to success.” 

“Don’t begin yet. You are too good a fellow 
to be spoiled. And really Armistead doesn’t put 
on the airs to which you allude to any offensive ex- 
tent. But tell me how things are going with you, 
and how vou come to be with these people of the 
Santa Cruz?” 

“Purely by accident. They came up with us at 
the noon rest to-day, and we’ve travelled together 
since. I wish they were — elsewhere.” 

“Why?” 

“Well, Miss Rivers has taken a great fancy to 
Dona Victoria, and devotes all her attention to her. 
This makes things rather tiresome for the rest of 
us.” 

“Meaning Mackenzie and yourself, — I see. But 
Mac is putting in his time very well just now, and 
the girl is magnificently handsome.” 

Thornton glanced at Doha Victoria and Mac- 
kenzie, who were talking together. 

“She’s handsome certainly — to anybody who likes 
the style,” he agreed temperately. “As for Mac- 
kenzie, he’s more of a Mexican than anything else, 
and always gets on with these people. She’s a great 


At Guasimittas. 


45 


heiress, you know. Her mother’s the sole owner 
of the Santa Cruz Mine.” 

“Ah !” 

“Rather a remarkable young woman for a Mexi- 
can,” Thornton continued. “Manages the business 
herself and does it uncommonly well. Even gives 
orders to Don Mariano yonder, who looks as if he 
could take President Diaz’s job with credit to him- 
self; and who is as shrewd as he looks, judging 
from our business experience with him. We part 
with them to-morrow, I’m glad to say. How about 
Armistead and yourself? You are going on to 
Topia, I suppose ?” 

“The cordiality of the supposition is so great that 
I regret not being able to say positively that we are, 
but we may go instead to Canelas. There’s some 
property in that neighborhood we wish to look at.” 

“Then you’ll travel with the Santa Cruz party, no 
doubt ?” 

“Possibly — if we like to do so.” 

“Oh, I should think you’d like! Doha Victoria, 
as you’ve said, is tremendously handsome, and the 
Santa Cruz Mine is the best ore-producer in this 
part of the Sierra.” 

“I fail to see the connection.” 

“Many men would see it quickly enough. The 
time has been when Armistead would, but I sup- 
pose he’s too prosperous now for that sort of thing. 
But, prosperous or not” — and the speaker rose with 


46 


A Daughter or the Sierra. 


an air of determination, — “I don’t see why he should 
be permitted to monopolize Miss Rivers, and I’m 
going to join them. Will you come?” 

Lloyd looked at the girl who was talking to 
Armistead. Had he never seen her before he would 
have felt attracted by the charm, resistless as mag- 
netism, which her presence diffused. But as it 
chanced he, too, had talked with her under the stars 
in the patio of the hotel at Guaymas, he knew by 
personal experience the delightfulness of her com- 
panionship; and he was conscious, therefore, of a 
temptation to share, even with others, in the con- 
versation, so sweet, so gay, so full of that quick 
comprehension and sympathy which is the fine 
flower of culture. But duty intervened. As they 
were entering the Huerta , Armistead had said: 

“You know my Spanish isn’t good enough for 
conversational purposes, so I wish you would cul- 
tivate the Santa Cruz young woman. Try to find 
out, as far as possible, what kind of person she is.” 

“I didn’t engage for diplomatic service,” Lloyd 
reminded him. 

“But you engaged to do my talking, and this is 
a case where it’s very important that it should be 
done,” Armistead responded impatiently. “I’d like 
to exchange some of my French and German for 
a little Spanish just now; but, since that isn’t pos- 
sible, I must use yours — and I want the benefit of all 
the brains you have in the bargain.” 


At GuasimiUvAS. 


47 


It was the recollection of this which moved Lloyd 
when, in reply to Thornton’s last words, he an- 
swered, a little reluctantly: 

“Thanks ! — no. Miss Rivers will be quite suf- 
ficiently monopolized with yourself and Armistead. 
I believe I’ll join Mackenzie and cultivate the heiress 
of the Santa Cruz.” 


CHAPTER V. 


UNDER THE ORANGE TREES. 

THAT Mackenzie was quite ready to resign his 
a place by the heiress of the Santa Cruz became ap- 
parent as soon as Lloyd approached them. He rose 
with alacrity, commending the newcomer to Doha 
Victoria’s consideration, and then himself made 
haste to join the group around Miss Rivers. 

Lloyd looked after him with a slight smile; and 
the smile was still on his lips when his glance re- 
turned to the Mexican girl, as she sat on her Oriental- 
like pile of cushions, with the Moorish lantern hang- 
ing from the end of the ridge-pole of the tent above 
her head. These accessories — fragments of the mod- 
ern craze for things Eastern and bizarre, — which had 
been brought by Miss Rivers for purposes of decora- 
tion, seemed here to lose their note of strangeness, 
and to fit into the scene as perfectly as the Hispano- 
Moresque architecture of the country, or the ancient 
lamps of wrought-iron swinging in so many 
shadowy arcades and dim chapels since the six- 
teenth century. Especially they suited this girl, who 
belonged to the world they suggested, or at least 
to a world remote from all that is classed under the 
term modern. With his knowledge of the widely 
48 


Under the Orange Trees. 49 

differing strains of blood which met in her veins, 
and of the still more widely differing hereditary in- 
fluences which might be supposed to have aided 
in moulding her character, Lloyd found himself re- 
garding her curiously; but, except in the fairness 
of her skin, he could perceive no trace of alien blood. 
Otherwise she seemed to him a perfect type of a race 
he had always admired, a superb impersonation of 
the finest physical traits of her people. 

“She is a true daughter of the Sierra,” he said 
to himself; and then he spoke aloud: “I suppose 
that you are on your way home, senorita?” 

“Si, senor,” she answered courteously but briefly. 

“I had once the pleasure of seeing your home. It 
is very beautiful,” Lloyd went on, choosing the only 
topic which seemed available. 

She looked at him surprised. 

“You have seen my home, senor? It is very far 
in the Sierra.” 

“But I know the Sierra well,” he answered. “I 
have been in it a great deal, and I like it extremely.” 

Her surprise was now mingled with the same in- 
credulity she had shown when Miss Rivers declared 
her admiration of the quebrada. 

“You like the Sierra!” she repeated. “That is 
not common with Americanos. They think our 
country rough and ourselves uncivilized, — at least 
that is what I have heard, for I know very few of 
them.” 


50 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


Her tone so plainly added, “Thank God!” that 
Lloyd smiled again. 

“All Americans are not alike, senorita,” he re- 
marked. “There are some who measure everything 
by what they know at home, and who are rude in 
their criticism of things to which they are not ac- 
customed; but these are uncultivated and what we 
call provincial. There are others who not only ad- 
mire all that is picturesque, but who would not if 
they could change foreign manners and customs, be- 
cause they give variety and color to the world.” 

“The senorita is like that,” said Victoria, glanc- 
ing at Miss Rivers. “I did not suppose there were 
any Americans of that kind until I met her. She 
admires even the quebrada.” 

“So you see I tell you the truth. There are 
Americans and Americans. Unfortunately, not 
many like Miss Rivers have ever found their way 
into this part of Mexico.” 

“But you are like her if you admire the Sierra.” 

“In that respect, yes. And there are many others 
who would be wild with admiration over its beauty.” 

“I should be sorry for Americans of that kind 
to come,” said Victoria, deliberately. “We do not 
want them.” 

“Is not that very inhospitable?” Lloyd remon- 
strated. 

The girl looked at him, frowning unconsciously 
until her black brows made a straight line across her 
face. 


Under the Orange Trees. 


51 


“There is no merit in hospitality toward those 
who come to ruin and rob,” she said. “And if they 
did not rob,” she added, with a keen instinct, “they 
would change all things. It would be no longer 
our country after many Americans came into it. If 
I could I would make them all stay away.” 

“You would banish us all — even Miss Rivers, who 
admires the country so much ?” 

Victoria hesitated an instant. Plainly Isabel 
Rivers’ charm had been potent even here. But po- 
tent as it was it did not make her waver. 

“Yes,” she said, “I would wish that even Miss 
Rivers did not come, because she may bring others ; 
and, whether they admire our country or not, we 
don’t want them.” 

“If admiration of the country is not a passport, 
then there is clearly no place for me,” said Lloyd, 
who was at the same time amused and sympathetic. 
It is possible that these sentiments might have 
yielded to a sense of natural offence at such plain 
speaking but for his remembrance of the story which 
justified both the feeling and the manner in which 
it was expressed. A mingling of curiosity and in- 
terest made him probe a little farther. “I suppose 
that with these sentiments you would close the gates 
of your hacienda in the face of all Americans?” 

“Americans do not come to our hacienda, senor,” 
Victoria answered. “But if they should — our gates 
are never closed to strangers. It is not the way of 
the Sierra.” 


52 A Daughter or thr Sierra. 

“I know well that it is not. I have never yet 
asked hospitality in the Sierra and had it refused.” 

“No, it is never refused,” she replied; “but some- 
times it is very ill requited.” 

There was a moment’s pause; for Lloyd, who 
might have answered easily had he been ignorant 
of what special deed of ill requital was in her mind, 
felt all power of answer taken from him by his 
knowledge. And as he looked at her, in her noble 
beauty, her air of command, her pride and her just 
resentment, he said to himself that the work which 
lay before Armistead was not only unenviable but 
doomed to failure, if this girl had the power, as 
she surely would have the will, to hold her own 
against the hand which came once more to return 
hospitality and trust by robbery. 

This was the report which he made a little later 
to Armistead. 

“If I were in your place,” he added, “I would go 
back to Trafford and tell him to come and do his 
own contemptible work if he wanted it done. But 
I should also warn him that he will never accomplish 
it ; for this girl will fight like a lioness, and she will 
have the country behind her.” 

Armistead smiled — a superior and not altogether 
pleasant smile. 

“It’s not remarkable,” he observed, “that you 
haven’t — er — succeeded very well in life.” 

“If you mean that I am a complete failure,” 
Lloyd answered, “I agree with you that it’s not re- 


Under the Orange Trees. 


53 


markable; but I don’t believe that it is absolutely 
necessary to choose between failure and doing such 
work as this.” 

“It is certainly necessary to choose between fail- 
ure and carrying out the instructions of your em- 
ployers. If I were foolish enough to go back to 
Trafford as you advise, do you know what would 
be the result?” 

“I shouldn’t care.” 

“Probably not; but the result would simply be 
that Trafford would send some other man to carry 
out his instructions with regard to this matter, and 
that I should lose a very valuable connection without 
doing any good to anybody — 

“Except to yourself. A man does good to him- 
self when he keeps his hands out of such work.” 

“You’ll allow me to be the best judge of that,” 
returned Armistead, coldly. There was a moment’s 
pause, and then he added : “We are going on with 
these people to-morrow.” 

“You mean — ?” 

“The Santa Cruz party. I find that the adminis- 
trador — what’s his name?” 

“Don Mariano Vallejo.” 

“Yes, Don Mariano is a very sensible man. My 
Spanish isn’t academic, but he manages to under- 
stand it, and I can extract a good deal of informa- 
tion from him. When we reach Canelas I shall tell 
him that I have business with Doha Beatriz, and 
he will then probably ask me to go on with them 


54 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

to Santa Cruz. If not, we will quietly follow in a 
few days. I suppose your chivalry has not been 
so deeply stirred by Doha Victoria that you will 
desert me at this stage of affairs ?” 

“My chivalry, as you call it, has been no more 
deeply stirred by Doha Victoria than it was stirred 
when you told me the story in San Francisco,” Lloyd 
replied, a little coldly in turn. “Of course I will 
fulfill the agreement made then, which was that I 
should accompany you to Santa Cruz and act as your 
interpreter if you needed one; but further than that 
I will not go.” 

“My dear fellow, I haven’t the faintest intention 
of asking you to go further,” said Armistead care- 
lessly, throwing away the end of the cigar he had 
been smoking. “And now let us try to get a little 
sleep, since we must be up at daylight.” 

At the time mentioned — that beautiful hour of 
dawn which is called in Spanish the madrugada — all 
was movement, bustle, noise, about Guasimillas. 
Packs were being loaded on mules, blindfolded that 
they might stand still for the cords to be many times 
cast and then tightened about their aparejos ; mozos 
were shouting, bridles and spurs were jingling; rolls 
of bright-colored blankets lay on the ground ready 
to be adjusted behind the saddles of the riders. In 
the huerta the Rivers’ tent had been struck, and 
mattresses, cushions, blankets rolled in waterproof, 
to be placed with the canvas and poles on one of 
the mules standing by in the deep shade of the 
orange-trees. 


Under the Orange Trees. 55 

Isabel Rivers taking her way to the house, where 
breakfast was to be served on the corridor, was 
looking with such delighted eyes at the animated 
scene, that Rloyd, who met her, paused, struck by 
her expression. 

“ Buenos dias, senorita !” he said, smiling. “You 
seem to be enjoying something very much.” 

“I am enjoying everything,” she replied. “Do 
you wonder? I have left the nineteenth century — 
the ugly, prosaic nineteenth century — behind, and 
am in the fifteenth or sixteenth, when life was full 
of color, romance, picturesqueness. This is a per- 
fect page out of those times.” 

“So it is,” he assented. “And you like it?” 

“Like is too faint a word. I have never enjoyed 
anything so much ! for I have never before been in 
a country with natural features so marvellously 
beautiful, and a life and customs that seem a perfect 
mingling of mediaeval Europe and the East. Don’t 
you like it, or are you one of the Americans who 
pine for locomotives and trolleys?” 

“I am not,” he assured her with commendable 
gravity. “I believe I appreciate all the charm you 
are feeling; although, of course, it is not so fresh 
to me as to you. But I have lived in the Sierra a 
long time and it has laid its spell upon me.” 

“The Sierra!” she repeated. “Somehow, when 
you and Dona Victoria utter that name it has a kind 
of magical suggestiveness. You speak of it as if it 
were a land apart.” 


56 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

“It is a land apart — one of the few untouched 
regions of primeval wildness and grandeur yet re- 
maining on earth.” 

“And you want to bring a railroad into it and 
destroy it !” 

“I want to bring a railroad into it ! Who has been 
traducing me to you ?” 

“Somebody — papa or Mr. Thornton — said yes- 
terday that is what you are here for — you and Mr. 
Armistead.” 

“Mr. Armistead may be contemplating such an 
enormity, but I am quite guiltless of it. The useful 
mule suffices me.” Then, as they walked toward 
the house, he added: “I am glad you admire the 
country so much ; but do you not think that you may 
grow a little tired of Topia — after the novelty has 
worn off?” 

“No, I don’t think so,” she answered. “That is 
papa’s fear; but, then, he does not know me very 
well. You see,” she went on confidentially, “we have 
not lived together for years — not since my mother 
died when I was quite a child. Since then I have 
lived with my aunt in San Francisco, or been abroad 
with another aunt. So papa regards me as simply 
one of the genus 'young lady,’ and credits me with 
what he supposes to be the tastes of that genus. I 
had to insist upon coming with him to Mexico.” 

“The insensibility of fathers to their privileges is 
sometimes astonishing.” 

“Is it not? But I hope to make him acquainted 


Under the Orange Trees. 57 

with me before I leave Topia. You know he can 
not get rid of me for at least six months. When 
the rainy season comes, it seems that this river rises 
and the way down the quebrada is closed.” 

“I suppose you are the only person who* antici- 
pates that event with pleasure. But you know you 
can always, if you like, go out over the Sierra.” 

“So Doha Victoria told me. By the by” — she 
paused again, — “do you know Doha Victoria very 
well ?” 

“On the contrary, I met her for the first time 
last night.” 

“Oh! But perhaps you can tell me if I am not 
right in thinking that she is very — typical ?” 

“Of her people, do you mean? Yes: she has all 
the finest physical traits of her race.” 

“And more than the physical traits. It is difficult 
to express, but it seems to me that I have never 
before known any one so perfectly in harmony with 
her environment — all this, you know.” And Miss 
Rivers waved her riding whip comprehensively in 
a gesture which included all the magnificence of the 
great gorge, as well as the varied and picturesque 
human life around them. 

“She makes the same impression upon me,” Lloyd 
said, “as if she were an impersonation of the wild, 
sylvan charm of the Sierra.” 

“I thought you would feel it, too,” said Miss 
Rivers. “I can always tell whether or not it is 
worth while to mention a thing of this kind to any 


58 


A Daughter or thr Sirrra. 


one. There are people who would laugh at such 
fancifulness, you know.” 

Lloyd answered quite truthfully that he knew 
very well. 

“But she keeps Wordsworth constantly in my 
mind — I mean, of course, some of his poetry,” 
Isabel went on. “I find myself murmuring as I look 
at her : 

And her’s shall be the breathing balm, 

And her’s the silence and the calm 
Of mute, insensate things.” 

“There is fire under the silence and the calm,” 
said Lloyd. “I saw a flash of it last night.” 

“Did you ? But, after all, the fire should be there 
to typify perfectly the people and the country, should 
it not?” 

He laughed. 

“If you are determined to make a type of her, I 
suppose it should,” he replied. “At all events, it 
generally is there in both.” 

“She interests me very much,” said Miss Rivers. 
“I shall ask her to come to see me in Topia, and I 
hope she may come. Do you think she will ?” 

“Unless she is as insensible as Mr. Rivers to a 
great privilege, she certainly will. And if she in- 
vites you to her home in the Sierra, let me advise 
you to go. That would interest you immensely.” 

“Oh, nothing would prevent my going, — noth- 
ing! If she only asks me — yes, papa, here I am! 
Is breakfast ready? Come, Mr. Lloyd!” 


CHAPTER VI. 


LAS JOYAS. 

A S the quebradas are but Nature’s gates of en- 
trance to the Sierra, and their enclosing heights 
but stepping-stones to the greater heights, sisters of 
the sky and the clouds beyond, so when the traveller, 
climbing upward by one of these wild gorges, has 
tracked its rushing river to its source high in the 
everlasting hills, he finds himself in the vast Alpine 
world of mountains and valleys, of hanging woods 
and singing waters, of abounding freshness, green- 
ness and delight, which forms the crest of the 
mighty Mother-Range. In these solitudes the homes 
of men are few ; but now and then the hills open and 
on some uplifted plain are Arcadian breadths of 
productive fields, and cattle in Biblical numbers, — 
a picture like a pastoral idyl, set in the frame of the 
surrounding mountains. 

It was such a picture that Lloyd and Armistead 
saw before them as they drew up their horses on a 
hillside, which they were descending along a wind- 
ing trail ; and, at a point where the wooded steeps fell 
sharply away, looked out between the tall stems of 
giant trees, and through their great crowns of ver- 
dure, at a wide, cultivated valley, on either side of 
59 


60 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


which bold, green hills rolled up; while a crystal 
stream, shining just now with sunset reflections, 
flowed through the lovely levels. In the distance a 
cluster of buildings stood embowered in shade, and 
the whole scene breathed an air of exquisite tran- 
quillity. 

“This,” said Lloyd, “is Las Joyas.” 

“Las Joyas!” Armistead repeated. “I thought it 
was Santa Cruz.” 

“The Santa Cruz Mine is two or three leagues dis- 
tant, among the hills,” Lloyd answered. “This is 
the Calderon hacienda, which is older than the mine 
and bears a different name.” 

“It’s a very prosperous-looking place,” said Armi- 
stead, taking in with sweeping glance the far-stretch- 
ing fields and the stone walls, miles in length, which 
enclosed them. “I suppose that it was here Trafford 
found the — er — lady of whom we are now in 
search.” 

“No doubt,” Lloyd responded dryly, “since it was 
her father’s property. He was what we would call 
a self-made man, coming from some small ranch 
among these mountains; but he must have had un- 
common abilities, for lie died owning a principality 
in land.” 

“If it’s all in the Sierra, it can’t be very valuable.” 

“It will be valuable if this country is ever opened 
up, for the timber on it alone is worth a fortune; 
and meanwhile there are ranches enough, besides 
this hacienda, to produce a fine income — from the 
point of view of the Sierra.” 


Las Joy as. 


61 


“ ‘Man wants but little here below/ I should 
judge, whether he wants that little long or not,” said 
Armistead as they rode on. “But, now that we have 
reached here, the question is how shall we be re- 
ceived?” 

“Better than we deserve, I haven’t the least 
doubt,” Lloyd replied. “I spoke to Don Mariano 
frankly when we parted at Canelas, and told him 
that you had business to transact with Doha Beatriz 
on behalf of her — husband.” 

“Her husband! Trafford has been divorced from 
her for at least fifteen years.” 

“Such trifles are not recognized here. In the eyes 
of these people, and as they believe in the eyes of 
God, Trafford is simply an unfaithful husband.” 

“At least Dona Beatriz has recognized the divorce 
sufficiently to resume her maiden name.” 

“Don’t you know Mexican (which is Spanish) 
custom better than that? Doha Beatriz has not re- 
sumed the name of Calderon, because she never gave 
it up. A Spanish woman when she marries does 
not part with her family name. She simply adds 
her husband’s to it with a preposition. She 
becomes, for example, Calderon de Trafford. And 
her children are Trafford y Calderon ; and if the last 
name is better known than the first, are likely to be 
called by it, as in the case of Dona Victoria. It is 
a custom too common to excite remark, both ancient 
and legal; not a new affectation, like the doubling 
of names in the States.” 


62 


A Daughter op the: Sierra. 


“Oh, with us there’s nobody aspiring to be fash- 
ionable who is so poor as to own but one name 
now !” Armistead laughed. “Well, to return to our 
subject. What did Don Mariano say when you told 
him why we were coming to see Doha Beatriz ?” 

“Replied with the air of a hidalgo that Doha 
Beatriz would receive us if we came to her house, 
and would hear what we — that is, you — have to 
say.” 

“You did not hint anything about the mine?” 

“Certainly not. I only opened the way for our 
reception, without any misunderstanding of the busi- 
ness on which we come. I don’t know how you may 
feel, but I shouldn’t care to take advantage of their 
hospitality on the pretence of being merely travellers 
in the Sierra.” 

“I shouldn’t call it a pretence : we are travellers 
in the Sierra. And if you hadn’t been so frank, we 
should have been at least sure of a night’s lodging. 
Now they may close the door in our faces.” 

“There is no fear of it,” Tloyd replied. “But 
since the door is still rather far off, and night falls 
quickly here, we had better press on a little faster.” 

They had now descended to the plain; and al- 
though their horses were tired from a day’s hard 
work among the mountains, they quickened their 
pace in response to the spur, as they found them- 
selves on a level road, running by the side of a stone 
wall which bounded the cultivated fields, spreading 
so far and fair and green toward the heights which 


Las Joyas. 


63 


closed the valley at its farther end. In the west, on 
a sky of pellucid aquamarine, a few clouds of pure, 
intense gold were floating; and above them the 
evening-star gleamed like a diamond. The crystal- 
line clearness of the atmosphere, with its inexpres- 
sible coolness and freshness, gave the sense of great 
elevation ; and every breath taken into the lungs was 
laden with the balsamic odors of the surrounding 
forests. 

After a ride of about a mile they reached the gates 
of the hacienda, from which a broad road led across 
the verdant expanse to where the white arches of the 
dwelling shone, under tall trees. On this road their 
figures were of course marks for observation from 
the time they entered the gates ; so when they finally 
drew up before the corridor that ran across the front 
of the long house they were not surprised to find 
Don Mariano awaiting them there, — a wonderfully 
dignified and picturesque figure, with his bronzed 
eagle face and gray hair. 

He greeted them with the courtesy which never 
fails any stranger at the door of a Mexican house, 
making them welcome with a hospitality which was 
not apparently lessened by the knowledge that they 
came on the errand of one who could only be re- 
garded as an enemy. Then, while their horses were 
led away, he bowed them through a great doorway 
— the massive, nail-studded doors of which might 
have served for a fortress, — into an inner court, sur- 
rounded by a corridor, or gallery, on which the 


64 


A Daughter of the: Sie:rra. 


apartments of the house opened. From this it was 
evident that there had lately been an exodus. A 
group of chairs near a table were not only empty, 
but one lay overturned as if from the hasty flight of 
some one who had occupied it ; and there were traces 
of feminine presence in a work-basket filled with 
materials for sewing, which had been left on the 
brick-paved floor of the corridor. 

“Be seated, senores,” observed Don Mariano, re- 
placing the chair on its legs. “If you have been 
riding all day in the Sierra, you are no doubt much 
fatigued and in need of refreshment.” 

Lloyd, on whom the burden of conversation fell, 
responded that they were certainly fatigued, but 
hoped that their arrival at Las Joyas was not an 
inconvenience. While Don Mariano was assuring 
him to the contrary a servant approached with a 
bottle and several small glasses on a tray, and he 
broke off to beg that they would take some tequila. 
Knowing this to be a rite of hospitality, the new- 
comers drained each a glass of the fiery transparent 
liquid; and Don Mariano having himself tossed off 
one, the tray was placed on the table. He then of- 
fered cigarettes; and these being accepted, opened 
conversation. 

“You are from Canelas to-day?” he asked, as he 
replaced in its box the unburnt end of the match 
with which he had lighted his cigarette. 

Lloyd replied that they had left Canelas the day 
after parting with him, and in the interval had been 
visiting one or two mines. 


Las Joyas. 


65 


“We wished to be sure that you had reached 
home before we presented ourselves at Las Joyas,” 
he added. 

“You have business, then, with me, senor?” 

“Not directly, senor. You may remember that 
I told you in Canelas that the business of Mr. Armi- 
stead is with the Senora Doha Beatriz Calderon. But 
he wished that she should be informed of his coming 
before his arrival ; and also that you, her administra- 
dor and adviser, should be with her.” 

“Your friend is very considerate” — Don Mariano 
bowed toward Armistead, who acknowledged the 
salutation with the air of one modestly receiving his 
due. “Is his business, then, so important?” 

“I think I mentioned to you senor, that he is the 
bearer of a communication from Mr. Trafford.” 

“Ah !” Don Mariano looked at the cigarette held 
between his brown fingers for a moment. “And this 
communication is for Dona Beatriz?” 

“For Dona Beatriz — yes, senor.” 

Don Mariano rose. It was as if a chill breeze had 
blown over his whole air and manner. 

“I will inform Dona Beatriz,” he said, ceremon- 
iously, and walked away. 

“We are in for it now, I suppose!” said Armi- 
stead, wearily stretching out his legs. “You might 
have told him that We are dead tired and would like 
a little rest before discussing business. Whefre the 
deuce shall we betake ourselves if Dona Beatriz an- 
swers my communication by turning us out of 
doors ?” 


66 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

“There’s nothing more unlikely.” 

“You can never tell what will happen when you 
are dealing with — er — uncivilized people. We must 
manage to defer the discussion of the matter until 
to-morrow. I am aching in every muscle, after ten 
hours in one of these confounded saddles, riding 
up and down mountains; and I don’t want to talk 
business, — I want rest and food!” 

“Here comes Don Mariano,” said Lloyd, glancing 
toward the door leading into one of the apartments 
where Don Mariano had disappeared; “and Dona 
Victoria!” 

It was indeed Victoria who came along the cor- 
ridor toward them with the administrador. She was 
dressed with the utmost simplicity, and wore over 
her head and about her shoulders the rebozo which 
Mexican women seldom discard even in the house; 
but her striking beauty, with its noble characteristics 
and absolute naturalness of manner and bearing, lost 
none of its impressiveness by the lack of setting and 
adornment. As she approached the two men, who 
rose to their feet, she held out a slender, sunburnt 
hand, and gave the tips of her fingers for an instant 
to each. 

“Sientese ustedes!” she said, with a queenly ges- 
ture; and as they seated themselves again, she also 
sat down and regarded them with her dark, proud 
eyes. “We learn from Don Mariano, senores, that 
you wish to see my mother.” 

“Yes, senorita,” Lloyd replied. “Mr. Armistead 


Las Joyas. 


67 


is charged with a matter of business to present to 
the consideration of the Senora your mother.” 

“She requests that he will present it to me, 
senor.” 

Lloyd glanced at Armistead, who, comprehend- 
ing the words, shook his head. 

“I never do business except with principals, if it 
can possibly be avoided,” he replied. “Say to Doha 
Victoria that it is necessary I should deliver my 
communication to her mother, but that I will very 
willingly wait until it is quite convenient for Doha 
Beatriz to see me.” 

Victoria frowned slightly when this was repeated 
to her. 

“It is not a question of convenience,” she said, 
with a ncrte of anger in her voice. “It is that I wish 
to spare my mother something which can not but be 
painful to her.” 

“I understand,” Lloyd answered ; and if there was 
anger in her voice, there was unmistakable sympathy 
in his. “But although Mr. Armistead must state 
his business to you if you insist upon his doing so, 
it will be better that he should speak with your 
mother directly. Then there can be no doubt of her 
answer.” 

“When I speak for my mother, it is as if she 
spoke for herself, senor.” 

“I have not the least doubt of that, senorita; but 
unless your mother absolutely refuses to see Mr. 
Armistead, he has no right to deliver his commu- 


68 


A Daughter or the: Sie;rra. 


nication to any one else. You see he is only the 
messenger of — another person.” 

“Say that I would much prefer to wait until to- 
morrow,” Armistead broke in. “And do give a hint 
that we should like a room and some supper.” 

“Dice el senor que el quiere mucho un cuarto y 
cena” said an unexpected, disdainful voice, which 
made everyone start and turn around. In a door- 
way just behind them a tall, extremely good-looking 
young man was standing, curling the ends of his 
dark mustache, as he eyed the two strangers with a 
glance of distinct disfavor. 

“My son, Don Arturo Vallejo,” said Don Mari- 
ano, with a wave of the hand. “He understands Eng- 
lish.” 

“I no spik it well,” said Don Arturo ; “but I com- 
prehend when others spik it.” 

“So it appears,” remarked Lloyd, dryly. “We are 
much obliged by your kindness in making us aware 
of the fact.” Then, turning to Victoria: “I hope 
you will pardon my friend for expressing the de- 
sire Don Arturo has so abruptly translated. We 
have no right to trespass on your hospitality.” 

“Our house is yours, senor,” she said in the 
familiar formula of welcome of the country. “And, 
as I told you once before, in the Sierra hospitality 
is never refused.” 

“I remember, senorita,” Lloyd replied; and it 
did not need the look in her eyes to assure him 
that the words she had added in Guasimillas were 
as present in her memory as in his. 


CHAPTER VII. 


AN APPEAR. 

PPIE room into which the two Americans were 
presently conducted proved to be a large apart- 
ment, bare of all furniture except two small, hard 
beds, one or two chairs, and the most primitive pos- 
sible lavatory arrangements. But their portman- 
teaus were on the floor, and Lloyd assured Armi- 
stead that such quarters were for the Sierra luxury 
itself. 

“In fact, this house astonishes me,” he said. “I 
did not think there was anything like it in the Sierra, 
though I heard in Canelas that Dona Victoria had 
built a casa grande on the hacienda.” 

“Dona Victoria seems to be running things al- 
together according to her own sweet will,” Armi- 
stead remarked, as, having wiped his face on the 
square of rough toweling provided for the purpose, 
he made ineffectual efforts to discern his image in 
a small, green mirror by the light of a single tallow 
candle. “But although the house is literally a casa 
grande, it seems to have only the rudest furnish- 
ing.” 

“Naturally, when everything must be made on 
the spot, or transported a hundred or two miles on 
69 


70 


A Daughter of thf Sierra. 


the back of a mule. Besides, those who have never 
known luxuries don’t miss them.” 

“Luxuries, no — but comfort !” 

“Comfort is a relative term, also. This, you may 
be sure, is a palace in all respects compared to the 
house in which these people have hitherto lived. But 
Dona Victoria has been to Culiacan, perhaps even to 
Durango; she has observed ways of living in those 
places; and, being a progressive young woman, she 
has seen no reason for continuing to live in a log 
house in the Sierra, since sun-baked bricks can be 
made anywhere.” 

“I wonder if this progressive young woman is 
afraid of what her mother may say or do, that she 
doesn’t want her to be seen?” 

“I think she simply wants to shield her from 
pain.” 

“Pain!” Armistead scoffed. “You can’t really 
believe that she is still suffering from Trafford’s de- 
sertion! The feelings of people closely allied to 
savages are very elemental and transitory, you 
know.” 

“I know that you had better get rid of your idea 
that these people are in any sense savages, or else 
keep it more carefully to yourself,” Lloyd returned. 
“You’ve had a lesson of the imprudence of taking 
for granted that nobody around you understands 
English. That young fellow who translated your 
remark about a room and supper — ” • 

“Confound his impudence !” 


An Appeal. 


71 


“As much as you like, but he was at least good 
enough to put you on your guard. It will be well 
to remember that he has keen ears, a good compre- 
hension of English, and evidently no love for gringos 
— especially those who come on such an errand as 
ours.” 

“I can imagine nothing of less importance than the 
opinion of a whippersnapper like that.” 

“Even whippersnappers have their uses. What 
Don Arturo is young enough to express, you may 
be sure that everyone else is feeling.” 

“I don’t care a hang what they are feeling ! I am 
here on Business” — the manner in which Armistead 
pronounced the name of the great American fetich 
is very inadequately represented b)y capitalizing its 
initial letter, — “and I propose to accomplish what 
I have come for, if the whole Calderon clan rises 
up to protest.” 

“They’ll hardly be satisfied with protesting.” 

“They can do what they like. I suppose the writ 
of the law runs even in the Sierra ?” 

“Possibly, but I shouldn’t care to be the man who 
tried to enforce it — at least not in the present case.” 

“Well, I shall not hesitate a moment to enforce it, 
if I find such enforcement necessary — isn’t that a 
knock at the door ? Supper ? Good ! I’m more than 
ready for it.” 

When they emerged from their apartment they 
saw that a table, in a corner of the corridor where 
a lamp was hanging, had been laid for two. Don 


72 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


Mariano, who was seated on a bench near by, rose 
to invite them ceremoniously to their places, but did 
not join them. 

“It seems they won’t break bread and salt with 
us,” Armistead observed, as he sat down. “Quite 
Arabian, isn’t it?” 

“It strikes me that they are treating us with a 
very fine hospitality ; all the more because they make 
no pretense of receiving us as friends,” Lloyd re- 
plied. 

Supper, served by a silent, rebozo - shrouded 
woman, being over, they joined Don Mariano where 
he sat, wrapped in a zarcipe, at the end of his bench ; 
and smoked, as they shivered in the keen mountain 
air, while talking of mines and forests. Presently 
Armistead yawned. 

“I think I shall go to bed,” he said. “I’m not only 
tired, but it is plainly the only hope of getting warm. 
Ask Don Mariano if it never grows warmer here?” 

Don Mariano answered the question with an em- 
phatic monosyllable. 

“Nunca!” he said. 

“Well, I suppose it’s not surprising,” Armistead 
went on. “What elevation did the aneroid record 
to-day? Twelve thousand feet? Not strange that 
one shivers at that height at night — without fire, too ! 
I’d like to build a rousing blaze in the middle of this 
patio. Since that can’t be done, I’m off! Buenos 
noches, seiior!” 

Observing that Don Mariano was also yawning, 


An Appeal. 


73 


and knowing the early hours kept on haciendas — 
where the day for all begins at or before the breaking 
of light, — Lloyd likewise said good-night, but he did 
not follow Armistead to his refuge of bed and 
blankets. On the contrary, having seen both that 
gentleman and Don Mariano disappear, he filled his 
briar with a fresh charge of short cut, and, plunging 
his hands in his pockets, walked out of the great 
front door of the house, on the threshold of which 
a mozo, wrapped to his eyes in his blanket, crouched 
half asleep. 

Wonderful was the beauty of the night which met 
him as he stepped outside, — wonderful and full of an 
unspeakable charm of tranquillity. The moon, late in 
rising, had not yet appeared over the eastern heights ; 
but the starlight of these high regions has a radiance 
so bright that every feature of the landscape, every 
fold of the distant hills, could be clearly discerned. 
Steeped in repose, the lovely valley stretched to the 
feet of the mountains which surrounded it, their 
crests outlined against the star-sown sky, their serene 
and mighty steadfastness embleming beyond all else 
on earth 

that eternal rest 

We can not compass in our speech. 

And it was not only the picture spread before 
the eye which conveyed this impression. Lloyd 
thought of the deep, majestic woods, the towering 
heights and dark gorges spreading for hundreds of 
leagues around this spot, and through and over 


74 A Daughter of the Sierra. 

which whoever sought it must pass. The air was 
filled with resinous, aromatic odors from the breath- 
ing earth, the vast encircling forests; and the only 
sound which broke the stillness was the music of 
flowing water, the song which the stream was sing- 
ing to the night and the stars as it flowed along the 
base of the hills. 

“Senor !” 

Lloyd started and turned sharply. Unheard, Vic- 
toria had come to his side, and stood looking at him 
with her eyes full of an expression which for the 
first time struck him as wistful and appealing. 

“Senorita !” he responded quickly, taking his pipe 
from his lips. 

“I saw you go out,” she said simply; “and as I 
watched you standing here alone it seemed as if you 
were waiting for some one, and so it occurred to 
me to come and ask if you will help me a little.” 

“Nothing could give me more pleasure than to 
help you in any way,” he answered. And indeed 
the sympathy which he had felt for her from the 
first was now quickened to a chivalric desire to as- 
sist her in the fight which was before her unless she 
yielded to the demand about to be made; and no 
one could look at Victoria and imagine that she 
would tamely yield anything. 

“I thought it possible that you would,” she said ; 
“because I remembered that when I talked to you 
at Guasimillas and again at Canelas, you seemed dif- 
ferent from others who come into our country. You 


An Appe)aIv. 


75 


seemed to feel, to understand things almost as we 
feel and understand them.” 

“I have tried to do so,” he assented. 

“And therefore,” she went on, “you may be will- 
ing to tell me what it is that the senor, your friend, 
wishes to say to my mother.” 

The liquid, brilliant eyes uplifted to him in the 
starlight were now almost beseeching; but Lloyd 
found himself somewhat taken aback by the form 
in which his assistance was asked. 

“Senorita,” he said again — then hesitated — “do 
you not think it would be better to let my friend 
speak for himself?” 

“Your friend has refused to answer my question 
once,” she said, “and I shall not ask him again. But 
I thought that you might understand that what I 
wish to do is to shield my mother — to know whether 
or not it is necessary for her to see this man.” 

“She does not wish to see him?” Lloyd was con- 
scious of the folly of the question as he asked it. 

“Senor!” There was a flash in the liquid soft- 
ness of the eyes. “Could she wish to see him ? But 
she will do whatever I say, and I know not what 
to say ; but I thought you might help me to decide — ” 

“And so I will!” said Lloyd, with sudden deter- 
mination. “There is no reason why you should not 
be told what concerns you so much. You know that 
Mr. Armistead has come here as the agent of — ” 

“Mr. Trafford,” she said, as he paused. “Yes, I 
know that. But for what object does he come?” 


76 


A Daughter or the: Sie;rra. 


“To assert Mr. Trafford’s claim of ownership 
over the Santa Cruz Mine,” Lloyd answered con- 
cisely. 

“Ah !” She caught her breath sharply, and again 
the starlight showed a flash of fire in the dark eyes. 
“He will dare? But the Santa Cruz Mine is my 
mother’s; she inherited it from her father; and it 
had been abandoned for years, when we reopened it, 
worked it, made it what it is to-day. What claim 
has Mr. Trafford upon it?” 

“It appears that your grandfather gave him a title 
to the mine when he married your mother.” 

“And although he has put my mother away he 
holds fast to her property. Oh, I know that! But 
let him be satisfied with the Rosario hacienda, with 
the Santa Catalina and San Fernando Mines. The 
Santa Cruz he shall never touch.” 

“I hope that you can hold it against him,” said 
Lloyd; “but I am afraid you must prepare for a 
fight.” 

She lifted her head with the air of one who ac- 
cepts a challenge. 

“We will fight,” she said; and the brief words ex- 
pressed much. 

“Well, that is all,” Lloyd added after a moment. 
“So now you can prepare your mother, and you can 
decide whether or not she should see Mr. Armistead 
to-morrow.” 

Victoria brought her brows together in the 
straight, resolute line with which he was already so 


An Appeal. 


77 


familiar. For the first time she looked away from 
him, out over the starlit valley to the solemn en- 
circling heights ; and there was a pause in which he 
heard again the song of the stream. It lasted only 
a moment. Then the girl turned her gaze back to 
meet his. 

“I have decided,” she said. “It will be best that 
she should see him.” 

“I think so,” Lloyd answered, struck by the quick- 
ness of her decision. “There can then be no doubt 
that the answer given is her own.” 

“It is not that only,” Victoria said. “It is that 
she has a right to speak for herself and to tell that 
man” — she raised her arm and pointed northward — 
“how she scorns and how she defies him. In all 
these years she has. never told him. She has kept 
silence; she has submitted to indignity and rob- 
bery ; she has asked only to be left in peace here 
in her own home. But now that he has not left her 
in peace, that he is trying to carry robbery still fur- 
ther, it is right that she should speak for herself, and 
not through another.” 

“It is best,” Lloyd agreed again, — although he 
could not but wonder if the mother would be able to 
express herself half as forcibly as this creature of 
fire and energy would speak for her. He thought of 
Trafford as he had seen him in his office in San 
Francisco, an embodiment of all the qualities which 
go to make the successful man of business; and 
wondered afresh over the link which bound such 


78 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


a man to these people in the far Sierra : to the In- 
dian woman whom he had married and flung aside, 
and to this girl in whom two such diverse strains had 
met, to form — what? The errand upon which he 
had come so reluctantly began to interest him deeply. 
More and more he found himself becoming a parti- 
san, all his instincts of chivalry stirred in behalf of 
these women fighting for their rights. If necessary, 
he felt that he would fight for them, aid them to 
defend what was theirs by every rule of equity. 
Something of this must have been written on his 
face, for Victoria suddenly held out her hand. 

“Thank you, senor!” she said gratefully. “You 
have told me what I wished to know; you have 
helped me very much. Thank you and good-night !” 

If he had wished to profess his readiness to serve 
her further — to explain, perhaps, why he was there 
— she gave him no opportunity to do so. As noise- 
lessly as she had approached she went away, flitting 
like a shadow from his side, vanishing into the 
deeper shadow of the doorway; leaving him again 
alone with the great golden stars, the steadfast 
mountains, and the singing stream. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


DONA BEATRIZ SPEAKS. 

1 E Lloyd had found Armistead awake when he 
8 finally retired to the room which they shared, he 
would probably have told him of his interview with 
Victoria and the information he had given her. But 
Armistead was sound asleep under his blankets, and 
by the next morning Lloyd decided to say nothing 
of the girl’s appeal to him. After all, he had told 
her only what she had a right to know, and what 
her reason for desiring to know justified him in tell- 
ing. So he held his peace with regard to the mat- 
ter; and when Don Mariano informed them imme- 
diately after breakfast that Dona Beatriz would see 
them, he accompanied Armistead to the interview 
with the subdued interest of one who knows be- 
forehand pretty much what will occur. 

They were conducted to a large room at the front 
of the house, into which floods of brilliant sunshine 
were pouring, showing its spaciousness and bare- 
ness; for a number of chairs, ranged stiffly around 
the walls, and one or two tables were all the furni- 
ture it contained ; while on the brick floor were only 
spread one skin of a monster toro and several of 
the beautifully-striped mountain-tiger. Everything 
79 


80 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

breathed the simplicity, austerity and remoteness of 
a life as far removed from the conditions of the 
modern world as that which might have been led 
in a baronial castle during the feudal ages. 

As the strangers, marshalled by Don Mariano, 
entered the room, two feminine figures came from 
an inner apartment, both closely wrapped in draper- 
ies, but one much larger and more stately than the 
other, — a woman of mature age and splendidly ma- 
tured beauty, with features cut on classical lines and 
eyes of midnight darkness, full of a wonderful liquid 
sweetness. There was much likeness between her 
and the slender, also stately, daughter who accom- 
panied her; but Doha Beatriz lacked the suggestion 
of some possibilities with which the lithe, fiery 
creature beside her was all alive ; and whether or not 
she possessed the gentleness, it was at least certain 
that she possessed all the repose of her race. 

She acknowledged the salutations of the two men 
with the usual murmured formulas of politeness; 
and then, inviting them to be seated with a wave 
of her hand, sat down herself. Victoria, who had 
not opened her lips, but merely bowed to them si- 
lently, sat down beside her; Don Mariano seated 
himself a little in their rear, having already ex- 
plained that Doha Beatriz had requested him to be 
present at the interview. 

There was an expectant pause ; and Lloyd, glanc- 
ing at Armistead, had a sense of satisfaction in 
recognizing that the latter was at last conscious of 
the awkwardness of the situation. 


Dona Beatriz Speaks. 


81 


“I almost wish that I had stayed in Canelas and 
sent a letter,” he muttered. “Confound it, Lloyd! 
You’ll have to explain the matter.” 

“I shall do nothing of the kind,” Lloyd returned. 
“I am here to translate whatever you wish to say, 
but I haven’t a single word to say for myself.” 

“You’re extremely disobliging, I must say! Well, 
tell Doha Beatriz that I have been sent here by — er — 
Mr. Trafford to see her with regard to — er — a mat- 
ter of business.” 

“She has heard that before, but I’ll tell it to her 
again.” And, turning to Dona Beatriz, Lloyd re- 
peated the words in Spanish. 

Doha Beatriz bowed with a manner full of dignity. 

“I am ready to hear whatever the senor has come 
to say to me,” she answered. 

“Then tell her,” said Armistead, making a strong 
grip upon his most business-like manner, “that I 
have come to remind her that the Santa Cruz Mine 
is the property of Mr. Trafford, and to inform her 
that he intends to assert his rights of ownership over 
it.” 

A moment’s pause followed the repetition of these 
words. Don Mariano uttered a quick ejaculation, 
but Victoria’s hand on his arm silenced him ; and it 
was Doha Beatriz who again spoke, quietly : 

“The Santa Cruz Mine belongs to me, senor; and 
I do not recognize that Mr. Trafford has any rights 
of ownership over it.” 


82 


A Daughter of the Sierra. 


“Remind her that the mine was given to him by 
her father,” Armistead replied. 

“Other things were also given him by my father, 
senor,” she answered. “Some of these he has kept 
— to his own profit; some he has thrown away.” 
There was another pause, fraught with significance, 
and then the full, sweet tones went on. “Whether 
he intended to keep or to throw away the Santa Cruz 
Mine does not matter. It is mine and I shall keep 
it.” 

“Tell her that she can’t hold it!” said Armistead, 
impatiently. “Trafford has a title to it which the 
law will sustain.” 

“We have paid the taxes on the mine,” Don 
Mariano interposed before Dona Beatriz could an- 
swer this. 

“It does not matter who paid them, senor, as long 
as they were paid,” Lloyd replied for himself. “You 
must know this.” 

“We have paid them in the name of Dona Beatriz 
Calderon, Senor.” 

“I doubt if that would stand against Mr. Traf- 
ford’s title, senor; especially since the — ah — tie be- 
tween Dona Beatriz and himself remains unannulled 
in Mexico.” 

Don Mariano’s face fell. 

“It is true,” he said. “We did not think of that. 
We should have let the title lapse and denounced 
the mine. But who could have anticipated the au- 
dacity — the shamelessness — of such a claim?” 


Dona Beatriz Speaks. 


83 


Lloyd shrugged his shoulders. 

“It seems to me that you might have anticipated 
it,” he said. 

“What are you talking about?” Armistead asked 
sharply. “What does he say?” 

“He says that the taxes have been paid regularly 
in the name of Dona Beatriz.” 

“What difference does that make?” 

“Not much, I am afraid ; although I am not suf- 
ficiently acquainted with Mexican law to speak posi- 
tively.” 

“Well, I am sure that Trafford is acquainted with 
it, and he told me that the mine is his by right 
of a perfect title. Simply tell them this, and ask 
what they are going to do.” 

The reply to this question was brief. 

“We shall hold the mine, senor,” Dona Beatriz 
said. 

“What pig-headed folly!” Armistead commented 
impatiently. “They can’t possibly understand the 
situation. Why on earth don’t you explain it to 
them more clearly? If only I could talk — ” 

“Mr. Armistead thinks that I have not explained 
the situation to you with sufficient clearness, senora,” 
Lloyd said, addressing Doha Beatriz. “He wishes 
you to know distinctly that Mr. Trafford believes 
himself to hold a perfect title to the Santa Cruz 
Mine, and that if you do not yield the mine to him 
he will take legal steps to assert his rights of owner- 
ship.” 


84 A Daughter of the Sierra. 

“You mean that he will force us to give it up, 
senor ?” 

“I mean just that senora.” 

“I have only one answer, senor — let him try! 
Whether or not he has a legal title to the mine I 
do not know ; but this I know — that he will never 
succeed in taking it. And if he is wise he will 
not try to do so. He has robbed me of much ,, 
— she opened her arms with a wide, tragic gesture, 
— “and he has robbed his daughter of more, but he 
shall not rob us of all. In scorn and contempt we 
leave him such part of what was mine as he has 
always held — held and built his fortune upon. But 
what is here, in the Sierra, is ours by every title of 
inheritance and of justice, and he shall have none of 
it.” She rose to her feet — a superb figure in her 
noble beauty, her righteous indignation. “I swear 
it!” she said. “Do you hear, senor? I swear it by 
the holy cross that stands over the mine! Neither 
he nor any one whom he sends shall ever enter the 
Santa Cruz.” 

“I suppose there is nothing for me to say in reply, 
except that I will communicate with Mr. Trafford,” 
Armistead observed, when these words were re- 
peated to him. “What steps he will direct me to take 
1 don’t know, but I do know that he’s not likely 
to yield his claim. I am sorry that they are going 
to put up a fight, but I suppose it was to be expected. 
Tell Dona Beatriz that I regret extremely to have 
had to annoy her with this demand, but that I am 
only acting as Mr. Trafford’s agent in the business.” 


Dona Beatriz Speaks. 


85 


“Dona Beatriz replies that she is aware of that,” 
Lloyd reported a moment later; “and adds that she 
hopes you will remain at Las Joyas as long as it 
may please you to do so.” 

“She is exceedingly kind, but I think you had bet- 
ter say that we will leave immediately. We haven’t 
any excuse for remaining longer, since I suppose 
they wouldn’t let us see the mine.” 

“I certainly wouldn’t advise you to ask to do so. 
There is a limit even to Mexican courtesy.” 

“Then say all the complimentary things that are 
in order, and let us bid them good-bye and get off.” 

The complimentary things having been duly said 
in stately Castilian, and responded to by Doha 
Beatriz with a dignity and grace which would not 
have misbecome a royal personage, Lloyd found him- 
self looking into Victoria’s eyes, which met his own 
with a very friendly glance, as she held out her hand 
in farewell. 

“ Adios , senor !” she said. “I shall not forget the 
service you did me.” 

“If I can serve you again, will you remember 
that I am at your command?” he asked. 

She looked surprised. 

“But you are with him!” — and she glanced at 
Armistead. 

“In this matter no longer than we leave your 
gates. In fact, I have never been with him further 
than merely to serve as his interpreter; but I shall 
not bear even that part in any steps which he may 
take against you.” 


86 


A Daughter of the Sierra. 


“In any steps which he may take against us we 
can defend ourselves,” she said proudly. 

“Yet a friend is not to be despised,” Lloyd urged, 
a little to his own surprise; for why, he asked him- 
self, should he wish to impress her with the reality 
of a friendship which after to-day could mean so 
little to her ? 

“A friend is never to be despised, senor,” she 
answered hastily; for those around were looking at 
them with some surprise. Then, with another mur- 
mured “Adios!” she turned away with her mother. 

And so a little later they took their departure from 
Las Joyas. 


CHAPTER IX. 


IN THE PATIO OP THE CARIDAD. 

I HE village of Topia lies far and high in the Si- 
erra, occupying a position so impregnable and 
almost inaccessible that it is easy to believe the tra- 
dition that it was once a stronghold of robbers, be- 
fore its rich mines were discovered and the present 
stern rule of Jaw and order began in Mexico. The 
cup-shaped valley in which the town nestles is sur- 
rounded on three sides by immense, cliff-crested, al- 
most precipitous heights, which tower above and 
curve around it like the walls of a mighty amphithe- 
atre. On the single side where these walls open, the 
mountain shelf drops sharply and sheerly to the que- 
brada a thousand feet below, down which pours its 
tumultuous river, and up which in the season of the 
rains come vast masses of clouds from the Pacific 
Ocean, a hundred miles away, that envelop Topia 
in their white folds, as they strike the sides of the 
great mountains which enclose it. A wilder spot, 
one with a note of more absolutely savage grandeur, 
does not exist on the face of the globe. And yet it 
has a note of beauty, too, which stirs the imagina- 
tion and sinks into the heart with a charm so ir- 
resistible that he who has once felt the spell of its 
87 


88 A Daughter of thf Stkrra. 

majestic forms, and feasted his eyes on the aerial 
loveliness of its tints, can never quite be satisfied 
in other and tamer scenes. 

So Isabel Rivers was thinking, as she sat on a 
heap of ore in the patio of the Caridad mine and 
looked at the picture before her. It was a very 
comprehensive view which her position gave ; for the 
Caridad mine lies in the heights which close the 
northern end of the valley. And as she sat in front 
of the rough arch of the horizontal tunnel which 
leads into the workings of the mine, the whole val- 
ley was spread with panoramic distinctness at her 
feet, its stupendous mountain wall sweeping around 
in splendid curve on each side. Passing over the 
town of single-storied houses, where the graceful 
belfry of the church formed the only salient feature, 
her gaze dwelt on the one bit of distance in the 
scene — a vision of farther heights robed in azure, 
which were to be seen through the gateway where 
the encircling ramparts opened to form the walls of 
the quebrada lying so dark and deep below. It was a 
glimpse of celestial softness and beauty, in striking 
contrast to the stern grandeur of the tremendous 
cliffs, the mountains, rent and torn and standing as it 
were on end, which formed the immediate fore- 
ground of the picture. Almost unconsciously she 
murmured aloud some familiar lines: 

The sounding cataract 

Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock, 

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, 

Their colors and their forms were then to me 
An appetite-, a feeling and a love 
Which had no need of a remoter charm. 


In the: Patio or the: Caridad. 


89 


Some one laughed, and she looked around quick- 
ly. The Mexicans at work in the patio — men bring- 
ing out ore, boys seated in groups on the ground 
breaking and sorting it — were all before her, and it 
was certain that none of them had laughed ; so, turn- 
ing, she glanced upward. A steep path came down 
the mountain above the tunnel, from some upper 
workings of the mine; and along this a young man 
in dirt-stained clothes was descending rapidly. A 
finishing run by the opening brought him to her 
side. Then he laughed again. It was Thornton. 

“I heard you spouting Wordsworth,” he said, 
“and I couldn’t but laugh to think how much one 
stands in need of a remoter charm — in Topia.” 

“Speak for yourself,” she returned. “I don’t 
think Topia stands the least in need of a remoter 
charm. And I wasn’t ‘spouting’; I was simply 
thinking aloud, not knowing of any irreverent listen- 
er near by.” 

“I’m not irreverent,” he protested. “My attitude 
toward both yourself and Wordsworth is reverence 
itself. But, honestly now, you must admit that, how- 
ever picturesque it may be, there are a few things 
lacking here, even though we do sit 

— on the hills, like gods together, 

Careless of mankind.” 

“It seems that spouting Tennyson is allowable, 
though spouting Wordsworth is not,” she said, with 
gentle sarcasm. “And it certainly isn’t at all true 
to say that you are ‘careless of mankind.’ I never 


90 


A Daughter or the Sierra. 


saw any one more visibly pining for an atmosphere 
of five-o’clock teas and golf and theatres, and — and 
all such things.” 

He threw up hands and eyes together. 

“I call the gods — not ourselves, but the real gods 
— to witness that I am incapable of pining for a 
five-o’clock tea, although I say nothing about golf 
and theatres, I frankly confess that I have a social 
as well as an artistic side to my character ; whereas 
you — ” 

“Well?” — as he paused. “Is it the social or the 
artistic side that my character lacks?” 

“Your character lacks nothing, absolutely nothing, 
which goes to make perfection. I was only about 
to remark that your social side is at present 
in abeyance, while you are all alive on your ar- 
tistic side — fascinated by the novelty of the scenes 
and life around you.” 

“What would I be made of if I were not fasci- 
nated by such scenes? I don’t envy the person who 
could look unmoved on that” — she indicated the 
wide and wonderful picture before them, — “or who 
would not be interested in the people living under 
those roofs down there.” 

He looked doubtful. 

“I grant that one might search the world around 
and find nothing grander in the way of scenery, if 
grandeur consists in precipitousness,” he said. “But 
for the people — don’t you think that human nature 


In the; Patio oe the Caridad. 91 

is pretty much the same under whatever roofs it 
exists ?” 

“Oh, human nature!” she answered impatiently. 
“Of course that is the same; in other words, these 
people love and hate and hope and fear and suffer 
just as we do. Those things are elemental. But 
what differentiates human nature are customs, man- 
ners, habits, and the mode of expressing elemental 
feeling. That is what I find interesting under those 
roofs.” 

“IPs evident that you must find something, else 
you couldn’t give so many hours as you do to these 
Mexican women, who are to me most uninteresting.” 

“That is probably because you don’t know enough 
Spanish to talk to them.” 

“The trouble in our conversations is not want of 
language, but want of topics. We have, as senti- 
mental people say, ‘nothing in common.’ In self- 
defense. most men under such circumstances are 
driven to making love, but that I never do.” 

“Never?” 

“If you are trying to entrap me into a stale quo- 
tation, I decline to be entrapped. If you mean to 
cast doubt on my assertion — why, by Jove! — 
Lloyd!” 

The tall, sunburnt man who had entered the 
patio with the careless air of one who finds himself 
in a spot with which he is.thoroughly familiar looked 
quickly around at sound of his name. 

“Ah, Thornton!” he said, putting out his hand. 


92 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

And then, uncovering at the sight of the figure rising 
from the ore-heap: “Miss Rivers! this is an un- 
expected pleasure.” 

“Not an unexpected pleasure to find me in Topia, 
I hope,” she said, smiling ; “else you must have for- 
gotten our journey up the quebrada.” 

“In Topia, not at all,” he replied; “but in the patio 
of the Car i dad.” 

“Oh, Miss Rivers is immensely interested in min- 
ing!” Thornton informed him. “If she continues 
on the course she has set out upon, she will soon 
be qualified to take charge of the Caridad.” 

“Which simply means,” explained the young lady, 
“that I walk up to the mine every afternoon for the 
sunset, that 1 have once or twice been taken into the 
tunnel, luxuriously seated in an ore-car, and that I 
have been trying to learn to distinguish the different 
grades of ore.” 

“It’s perfectly wonderful how much she has 
learned about ores,” Thornton remarked. 

“I should be very much ashamed,” said Miss 
Rivers, “if I had not brains enough to acquire the 
rudiments of a knowledge which these” — she waved 
her hand toward the group of boys engaged with 
rapid dexterity in breaking and sorting the ores — 
“have thoroughly mastered.” 

“It isn’t so much a question of brains as of train- 
ing,” said Lloyd. “But I see that I must congratu- 
late the staff of the Caridad on at least one important 
accession since I left it.” 


In the Patio oe the Caridad. 93 

“Yes, Miss Rivers is most important,” Thornton 
declared. “She is the element of civilization. We 
don’t know now how we ever existed without her.” 

“Very easily and very agreeably also, if I may 
judge by the stories told of the era before my reign,” 
said Isabel. “You are all like certain savage tribes 
of which one has heard — you submit and profess to 
appreciate the rule of law and order, but in your 
hearts you remember and regret the days of free- 
dom, lawlessness and disorder.” 

“The Gerente must answer for himself,” Thorn- 
ton said. “It’s possible that he may be pining for 
a return of the arbitrary rule of ‘Dona Guadalupe,’ 
as the mozos with bated breath called the cook ; but 
for the rest of us, I don’t think we are ungrateful 
for the blessings of Providence. What those bless- 
ings are, Lloyd, you can’t figure to yourself till you 
enter the Company house.” 

“I can figure a little,” said Lloyd. “I observed 
clean windows and lace curtains as I walked up the 
road a few minutes ago.” 

“Clean windows!” said Miss Rivers. “You mean 
that you observed, with astonishment, windows at 
all. There were not any when I came, only great 
doors, which of course, if one wanted any light, had 
to be open in all weather.” 

“I’m sure you remember how we used to enjoy 
dining in overcoats buttoned up to our chins, with 
a fog as thick as Dona Guadalupe’s soup pouring in 
through the open doors,” Thornton reminded him. 


94 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

“We have changed all that. Dinner has become a 
social function, with flowers, evening clothes — ” 

“Don’t believe such nonsense, Mr. Lloyd,” said 
Isabel. “I hope you will come and see for yourself 
just how civilized we are. And meanwhile here is 
papa at last.” 

Mr. Rivers emerged as she spoke from the tun- 
nel, accompanied by a young Mexican who was 
foreman of the mine. The Gerente at once observed 
his former subordinate. 

“Hello, Lloyd !” he exclaimed, with the extreme- 
ly tempered cordiality of the Anglo-Saxon. “Where 
do you come from ?” 

“From the Sierra,” Lloyd answered comprehen- 
sively, as they shook hands. 

“From the Sierra, eh? And what have you done 
with Armistead?” 

“He is at this moment down at the meson in 
Topia. We reached there an hour or two ago; and 
I left him endeavoring to repair the ravages of sev- 
eral days’ hard riding and forest camping, while ‘a 
spirit in my feet’ led me up the old path to the Cari- 
dad.” 

“Well, you’ll find the mine in pretty good shape. 
In the San Juan shaft — you remember it? — we’ve 
struck splendid ore. You must go in and look at 
the vein to-morrow. Meanwhile we are just going 
home. You’d better come with us.” 

Lloyd being of the same opinion, the group left 
the patio and strolled over a road which ran along 


In the Patio oe the Caridad. 


95 


the side of the mountain, with two or three hundred 
feet of steep descent below it and at least a thousand 
feet of sheer ascent above, until it turned and took 
its bowlder-strewn way down into the village. The 
shadow of the western hills had fallen over the 
valley, but sunlight still touched with gold the great 
cliffs cresting the eastern heights. The exquisite 
freshness which always comes with the close of the 
day in Mexico, and especially so in these wonder- 
ful Alpine regions, filled the air; forest fragrances 
were borne from the deep defiles of the hills ; and all 
over the high, mountain-girt valley a charm of re- 
moteness and repose seemed breathed like a spell. 

“And so you are just from the Sierra!” Miss 
Rivers said presently to Lloyd, when her father 
and Thornton paused to speak to some miners be- 
longing to the night-shift whom they met going up 
to the mine. “I am disposed to envy you. I have 
such a longing to climb that mountain wall” — she 
looked up at the great, sunshine-touched escarp- 
ments — “and see the wonders that lie beyond !” 

“They are really wonders of beauty and 
grandeur,” he assured her; “but the country is so 
wild and untrodden that only a genuine lover of 
Nature should venture into it. Any superficial en- 
thusiasm would soon wear off under the discom- 
forts and perils which abound.” 

“I hope I am a genuine lover of Nature. I have 
never found my enthusiasm wear off under discom- 
forts and perils. On the contrary, the farther I have 


96 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

gone into any wilderness the happier I have been. I 
don’t think I should prove unworthy of the Sierra.” 

“Then climb the mountain wall; the Sierra will 
welcome you. It will give you gladess to sleep in 
that you will feel it a sacrilege to enter; and, hav- 
ing entered, a hard necessity to leave. It will shade 
your way with the noblest forests you have ever 
seen ; it will lead you through canons where no ray 
of sunlight has ever pierced ; it will show you views 
so wide that you will wish for the wings of a dove 
to fly out over them; and it will give you pictures 
to carry away so beautiful that you can never for- 
get them; and, thinking of them, your heart will 
burn with longing to return to the wild, green soli- 
tudes, so high, so remote, so free from the presence 
of man.” 

She looked at him, her eyes shining with a light 
which had not been in them before. 

“I knew you could talk of the Sierra if you 
would,” she said. “How you love it !” 

“And so I believe would you. Therefore I bid 
you come.” 

“I will. I am now more than ever determined to 
do so. Have I told you, by the by, that Doha Vic- 
toria, before we parted, asked me to visit her ?” 

“I congratulate you on a triumph. I am sure that 
you are the first gringa whom Doha Victoria has 
ever asked to cross her threshold. And it is a thresh- 
old worth crossing. She has built herself a verit- 
able castle — for the Sierra.” 


In the: Patio of the: Caridad. 


97 


“You have seen it?” 

“I was there a few weeks ago.” 

“How interesting! Why did you go? But per- 
haps I should not ask.” 

“There is no reason why I should not tell you 
that I went with Mr. Armistead on business.” He 
hesitated a moment, then added: “It was not a 
business of which I approve, and therefore my part 
in it was simply that of an interpreter.” 

Miss Rivers was silent for a moment, and glanced 
over her shoulder to see how far the others were 
behind, before she said : 

“You can’t imagine how surprised I was when 
papa told me, after we reached home, who Doha 
Victoria is — the daughter of Mr. Trafford of San 
Francisco.” 

“It must have surprised you.” 

“It did more than surprise — it shocked me deeply. 
Of course, having been brought up in California, I 
have grown accustomed to meeting divorced people, 
and to seeing all the dreadful consequences of 
divorce — broken families, new households, children 
whose parents have each made other ‘marriages.’ 
Oh, it is horrible ! And, quite apart from any ques- 
tion of religious morality, everyone of the least re- 
finement of feeling must shrink from it with dis- 
gust. But what I was about to say is that, accus- 
tomed as I am to divorces, they have always been 
between people who were both anxious to have the 
tie broken; but papa says that he has heard that 
this poor woman — what is her name ?” 


98 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

“Dona Beatriz Calderon.” 

“Pretty, isn’t it? Well, that she was sent away 
to these remote mountains because — poor soul! — 
she was homesick, and in her absence divorced 
without her knowledge.” 

“It is perfectly true.” 

“And the man who did this thing has not only 
built his fortune on her property but continues to 
hold it.” 

“Again perfectly true. And not content with 
what he already holds, he is trying to obtain 
more. It is now, or soon will be, a matter of public 
knowledge that he is claiming the Santa Cruz Mine.” 

“The Santa Cruz! O Mr. Lloyd! Why, I have 
heard papa say that it is the richest mine in the 
Sierra.” 

“If you know Mr. Trafford, it is hardly necessary 
for me to point out that that is reason enough for his 
claiming it.” 

“But he is so wealthy — millions upon millions, 
people say that he has !” 

“The appetite for millions grows with their pos- 
session, 'you know. Probably Trafford’s wealth is 
exaggerated. Certainly he has use for it all; and 
he sees no reason why the woman whom he has 
thrown out of his life should be enjoying the reve- 
nues from even one of her father’s mines.” 

“Oh !” Language was inadequate to express Miss 
Rivers’ sentiments. She clenched her hands into 
two small white fists. “When I think that I have 


In the: Patio or the: Caridad. 99 

been in that man’s house, that I have walked over 
his carpets and sat on his chairs and accepted his 
hospitality, I hate myself,” she declared presently, 
— “or at least I feel as if I stood in need of some 
kind of purification. And will he succeed? — will 
he get the mine?” 

“Not if Dona Victoria can hold it, you may be 
sure.” 

“Ah, Dona Victoria! Yes, I am sure she will 
fight for her own and her mother’s rights. What 
is she going to do?” 

“Sit tight, as our British friends would say, on 
the Santa Cruz, I think. There’s nothing else for 
her to do.” 

“And what is he going to do — Mr. Trafford, I 
mean ?” 

“I must refer you to Mr. Armistead for that in- 
formation. I told him when we left the Calderon 
hacienda that I would help him no further, either 
directly or indirectly, in the matter; and so I am 
not in his confidence.” 

“You are still with him?” 

“In other business. We are taking hold of some 
mines together.” 

Miss Rivers walked on meditatively for a mo- 
ment. Then she said : 

“I must know what he is going to do. I want 
to put Dona Victoria on her guard.” 

“It is very good of you,” said Lloyd with a 
smile; “but I don’t really think that Dona Victoria 


L.ofC. 


100 


A Daughter or the: Sie;rra. 


needs to be put on her guard. She is a very wide- 
awake young woman.” 

“But they say in California that no man — no 
trained business man — is wide enough awake to be 
able to ‘get ahead of Trafford.’ I’ve heard that over 
and over again. How, then, can a Mexican girl hope 
to do so? No. We must find out what he is going 
to do and let her know.” 

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea certainly. But I don’t 
clearly see how we are going to find out without 
asking Armistead; and of course in that case one 
couldn’t violate confidence.” 

“You are a man, Mr. Lloyd,” said Miss Rivers, 
pityingly; “and I suppose it is only natural that a 
man should not know how to make another man talk 
without directly asking anything, or being bound 
to consider anything confidential. I will find out 
from Mr. Armistead what he has been ordered to 
do; and I only want to know if I can depend on 
you to help me, if I need your help. I may not 
need it at all, but if I do — may I call on you?” 

“I am at your command absolutely for any service 
you may require,” Lloyd replied with unhesitating 
promptness; although he could not but smile to 
think how he had already pledged his service to 
Victoria in almost the same words. 


CHAPTER X. 


armistead is confidential. 

C^TOP, Lloyd! — you aren’t going off surely! 

Isabel, why don’t you make him stay to supper ?” 

This was Mr. Rivers’ cheerful shout from the 
rear, when he saw Lloyd taking leave of Miss Rivers 
at the door of the house which contained under one 
roof the offices of the Caridad Company and the 
residence of its General Manager. 

“It’s all right, papa,” Isabel assured him. “Mr. 
Lloyd is going after Mr. Armistead. He’ll be back 
presently.” 

“Be sure and bring Armistead with you!” Mr. 
Rivers called after the departing Lloyd. “Tell him 
we won’t take any refusal.” 

“There’s not the least probability of a refusal,” 
Lloyd answered with a laugh, as he strode on at a 
rapid pace; for the Caridad house occupied a po- 
sition midway between the village and the moun- 
tain which held the mine. Erom its door the road 
ran slightly downward for several hundred yards, 
between stone walls, beyond which lay green fields ; 
and then, crossing by a bridge over a small stream 
that in the season of the rains grew into a raging tor- 
rent, became the paved thoroughfare of the village, 
101 


102 


A Daughter or the Sierra. 


lined on both sides with narrow, raised sidewalks 
and close-set houses, until the plaza which forms 
the centre of every Mexican town was reached. 

Small but very charming is the plaza of Topia; 
for it is a perfect bower of green foliage and hedges 
of roses, that fill the air with their rich fragrance. 
Here, as Lloyd had anticipated, he found Armistead, 
seated on a bench under the shadow of the church, 
which, with its wide, ever-open door, occupies one 
side of the square. 

“I’ve been wondering what had become of you,” 
he observed, in an injured tone, as Lloyd walked 
up. “You must know this place, — isn’t there any 
better fonda to be found than the one where we went 
through the form of dining when we came in?” 

“There is a much better one,” Lloyd replied ; “and 
I’ve been requested to take you to it. It is the Casa 
de la Caridad, which well deserves its name from 
the wide extent of its hospitality.” 

“Casa de la Caridad! That’s a charitable institu- 
tion, — what we call an asylum, isn’t it? I don’t 
care to go to a place of that kind.” 

“You’ll care very, very much to go when you 
understand that the C^sa de la Caridad in this case 
means the Company house of the Caridad Mine. It’s 
an old joke of the employees to refer to it as an in- 
stitution of charity.” 

Armistead remarked that poor jokes did not in his 
opinion gain in humor by being in a foreign 
language ; and then, having made his protest against 


Armistead is Confidential. 10 3 

trivial jesting, professed his readiness to proceed 
immediately to the Casa de la Caridad. 

“ You seem to have lost no time in presenting 
yourself there/’ he went on, a little suspiciously, as 
they walked up the street together. 

“I did not present myself there,” Lloyd an- 
swered. “But while you were in the hands of the 
barber I strolled up to the mine — you know I used 
to be on the staff, — and there I met Mr. and Miss 
Rivers, who insisted on our coming to take supper 
with them.” 

“It is certainly very kind of them, and — ah — char- 
itable too. I begin to appreciate the point of that 
joke. How is Miss Rivers?” 

“She looks extremely well.” 

“She must be getting pretty tired of this place.” 

“She didn’t express any feeling of the kind.” 

“Oh, she must be! What on earth is there here 
for a woman of her stamp? I can’t imagine how 
she has endured it even as long as this, and you 
may be sure she’s dying to get away.” 

Lloyd did not feel called upon to contradict the 
opinion. Miss Rivers, he reflected, was able to 
answer for herself ; and, after all, it was neither his 
business nor Armistead’s whether she was or was 
not dying to get away. 

The young lady, however, gave the contrary as- 
surance with convincing positiveness when they 
found her in her sitting-room a little later. 

“Tired of Topia ! — anxious to go away !” she ex- 


104 A Daughter or thr Sierra. 

claimed in reply to Armistead’s condolences. “But, 
on the contrary, I am enchanted with Topia. Life 
here is an experience I would not have missed for 
anything; and I shall certainly not go away until 
after las aguas, as the people call the rainy season.” 

“It’s hard to understand how you can possibly be 
contented in such a place,” Armistead wondered with 
evident incredulity. 

“I have always said I had a dash of the gypsy 
in me,” she laughed. “And yet I like civilization 
too. I see you are looking at the room, Mr. Lloyd. 
Don’t you think I have civilized it a little ?” 

“I am trying to recognize it as the old room in 
which we used to camp,” answered Lloyd. “You 
have simply transformed it.” 

In fact, he had found it difficult to believe that it 
was the same place with which he had formerly been 
familiar. It had then been a large, brick-floored, 
windowless apartment, almost as devoid of com- 
forts as of luxuries. Now there were not only win- 
dows, but these windows were hung with the draper- 
ies which even from the outside he had remarked; 
rugs were spread on the floor ; in one corner a broad 
divan was covered with a gaily-striped Mexican 
blanket and heaped with cushions. In another cor- 
ner a bookcase stood; a large table loaded with 
magazines and papers bore in its midst a tall brass 
lamp, with a crimson silk shade. Pictures, photo- 
graphs, a tortoise-shell kitten curled up in a work- 


Armist^ad is Con fide: ntiai,. 105 

basket, — Lloyd took it all in, and then turned his 
gaze on the girl who had created it. 

For up to this time he had never seen Isabel 
Rivers except in outdoor costume ; and charming as 
she had been in that, and well as it had seemed to 
suit her, he saw now that she was one of the women 
who are supremely at home and supremely charming 
in a woman’s own realm — the drawing-room. 
Gowned in some soft, silken fabric, in which blue 
and white were mingled, her slender waist clasped 
with a silver girdle, the whiteness of her neck and 
arms gleaming through the lace which covered them, 
she was, in her daintiness, fineness and grace, in the 
delicate rustle of her draperies, in the faint fragrance 
which hung about her, an enchanting vision to the 
man who had been long exiled from all those influ- 
ences of civilization of which such a woman is the 
finest flower. 

She met his eyes with the pleasure of a child in 
her own. 

“It is a great change, isn’t it?” she said. “And 
you can’t imagine how I enjoyed making it, and how 
I enjoy it now that it is made. Generally one doesn’t 
think of furniture : one takes carpets and tables and 
couches for granted. But when one has had to 
create them, one’s point of view radically changes. 
I am as proud as a peacock of my little comforts 
and prettinesses.” 

“So you ought to be. You must have worked 
very hard to create all these.” 


106 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

“Oh, no, — there were so many willing hands to 
help me ! But I think I am most proud of my book- 
case. I drew the design for it and the Company’s 
carpenter — an old Frenchman whom you probably 
remember — made it. Papa doubted if he could, but 
when I showed him my drawing he was simply de- 
lighted. 'That is my trade — cabinet-making,’ he 
said. 'You will see. I will do a nice job for you, 
and I shall take pleasure in doing it.’ He did take 
pleasure in it, I am sure ; and I would go to the car- 
penter’s shop and talk to him as he worked. He was 
very interesting.” 

Lloyd laughed as he thought of the odd, irascible 
old Frenchman. 

“I should not have credited him with that 
quality,” he said. 

“Perhaps you never talked to him. There are 
very few people who are not interesting when they 
really open themselves to one. He told me about 
his youth in France, and how he intended, as soon 
as he had made enough money — as soon as he 
sold a mine he had out in the Sierra, — to go 
back and visit his childhood’s home in Burgundy.” 

'Lloyd shook his head. 

“I am afraid he will never visit Burgundy if he 
waits to sell that mine,” he said. “It is a prospect 
into which, when I was here, he was putting all his 
savings; though your father told him there was 
nothing in it and advised him to drop it. The old 
fellow was obstinate, however, and held on.” 


Armistead is Confidential. 107 

“He wanted to go back to Burgundy, you see,” 
Isabel said. “His life was hard and without satis- 
faction ; so he cherished one beautiful dream — to go 
back to France before he died.” She paused a mo- 
ment, and Lloyd did not understand the look which 
came into her face, although he was struck by its 
sweetness and sadness. “It is a good thing, per- 
haps, that he did not go, after all,” she went on. 
“He would, no doubt, have been disappointed there. 
Things would not have been so beautiful as they 
seemed to him by the light of memory. And so it 
is well that he was called, instead, to go on a far 
longer journey, to a country more remote.” 

“Do you mean that he is dead ?” 

“Yes, he is dead. The bookcase was his last 
work. I am glad that I gave him the pleasure of 
doing it, and of talking to me the while of his 
memories and dreams. He died suddenly, just after 
he finished it.” 

There was a short silence. What was there in 
this girl’s voice which seemed to give such ex- 
quisite meaning to very simple words? Lloyd did 
not know ; he only knew that as she spoke he had a 
comprehension of things which would have been 
veiled from many eyes and minds. What had he, for 
instance, ever seen in the old carpenter but a good 
workman and eccentric man? But Isabel Rivers 
had not only discovered in him the ability to do 
finer work than any one else had ever suspected 
his power to execute, but she had discerned the 


108 A Daughter or thr Sirrra. 

pathos of his life and of his hopes ; had sympathized 
in his yearning to see once more the vine-clad 
slopes of his native Burgundy, yet had been wise 
enough to understand that the call of death spared 
him, perhaps, a last disappointment; and she now 
paid his memory the tribute of a feeling so kind, 
so gentle, that Lloyd felt as if it should make the 
old Frenchman rest more easy in his foreign grave 
out in the Campo Santo. 

The little story seemed also to make him com- 
prehend herself better than a long acquaintance 
might possibly have done; for we only know peo- 
ple in any real sense by certain self-revelations — 
always unconsciously made — which do not very 
often occur. The occasion for one may not arise 
during years of intercourse, or it may arise within 
the first hour of meeting a new acquaintance. He 
looked at the bookcase and then he looked again at 
the face before him. 

“Do you always understand like this?” he said. 
“It is a rare gift.” 

“I think,” she replied simply, “there is a great 
deal in taking interest enough to understand. You 
see I always take interest — but here comes Mr. Mac- 
kenzie with the mail! I am sure you haven’t for- 
gotten what an event the arrival of the mail is in 
Topia.” 

Mackenzie entered as she spoke, followed by a 
mozo carrying a large sack over his shoulder. Mr. 
Rivers turned from the examination and discussion 


Armistead is Confidential. 


109 


of ore-samples with Armistead, and directed the 
pouring out of the contents of the sack on the table, 
where it formed an attractive pile of matter under 
the lamp. 

“The carrier is very late in getting in to-day,” 
he observed. “I am afraid it is your fault, Isabel, 
for making the mail so heavy. Here are two pack- 
ages of books for you, besides a dozen or so other 
things.” 

“How delightful!” exclaimed Miss Rivers. She 
came forward with shining eyes and stood by the 
table, the softened radiance of the lamplight falling 
over her graceful figure and charming face, and 
catching a gleam of jewels on the white hands un- 
tying strings and tearing open wrappers. Involun- 
tarily all the men, except Mr. Rivers, found them- 
selves watching her, with a sense of pleasure in her 
beauty and grace. “Could anything be more de- 
lightful than to get half a dozen new books all at 
once, when one is so happily situated as to be in 
Topia with any amount of time to devote to them ?” 
she asked, glancing up at Armistead. 

“There are not many people who would describe 
themselves under such circumstances as ‘happily 
situated,’ ” he answered, smiling. 

“But how it teaches one the value of books !” she 
insisted. “What do people who live within easy 
range of libraries and booksellers know of the thrill 
with which one opens a package of volumes that 


110 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

have been brought on a mule two hundred miles 
over the Sierra !” 

‘‘To hear you, one would think the mule gave 
them a special value/’ said her father. 

“And so it does,” she answered. “To a person 
without imagination — and I regret to say that you 
haven’t a bit, papa, — the thing is indescribable ; but, 
as a matter of fact, the mule does add a value.” 

“It is a pity he couldn’t know it; for I am sure 
that if he were able to express himself he would wish 
that you had less taste for literature. Won’t you 
look at some of these papers, Armistead ? — and you, 
Lloyd? The 18th — you’ve seen nothing later than 
that in the way of a paper from the States.” 

So the little group gathered round the table, read- 
ing letters, glancing over papers and books, for a 
pleasant half hour, until Lucio appeared in the cur- 
tain-hung doorway, and, with his most impressive 
air, announced : 

“Ya estala cena, senorita!” 

At Topia, from its comparatively moderate ele- 
vation, the temperature of the nights is much 
milder than at Las Joyas; so when supper was over, 
the party found it pleasant to linger in the corridor 
running along the rear of the house. Its arches 
framed at all times a wide and beautiful picture of 
the valley rolling away to the towering eastern 
heights; but at night, either bathed in floods of 
silver moonlight, or in the still more exquisite radi- 


Armistead is Confidential. ill 

ance of the stars which shone with such marvellous 
brightness out of the vast field of the violet sky, it 
was touched with a mystical loveliness, — a poetic 
suggestiveness and majestic repose impossible to ex- 
press in words. 

The corridor which commanded this wide out- 
look over valley and mountains and sky was in it- 
self a delightful place; and in one of its corners 
Miss Rivers had fitted up a nook, where swung the 
Moorish lantern which had done duty before the 
door of her tent on her journey up the quebrada, 
and where long steamer-chairs invited to lounging. 
Here the group of men, with cigars and cigarettes 
lighted, gathered around her; and there was much 
gay talk and laughter, chiefly about people and 
events in the distant world which they called home. 
But suddenly Miss Rivers paused, and, turning her 
graceful head, looked out over the silent valley, 
where only a few lights gleamed here and there, 
toward the great encircling ramparts of the cliff- 
crowned hills, their mighty outlines cut against the 
star-set heaven. 

“We are frightfully frivolous,” she said with a 
little sigh, “in the face of anything so grand as this 
scene.” 

“What would you have us do? — quote Words- 
worth ?” asked Thornton. “I confess I’ve never tried 
living up to scenery; but if I did, I should select 
something less elevated than the Sierra.” 


112 A Daughter or thr Sirrra. 

“Sea-level would about suit your capacity, I should 
think,” remarked Mackenzie, with gentle sarcasm. 

“This is a very good distance from which to ad- 
mire the Sierra,” said Armistead, leaning comfort- 
ably back in his chair. “At nearer range one’s senti- 
ments toward it are not exactly those of admira- 
tion.” 

“Oh, I can’t imagine that!” said Miss Rivers, 
quickly. “I am sure my sentiments of admiration 
would increase the nearer I came to it. I shall 
never be satisfied” — she glanced smilingly at Eloyd 
— “until I have climbed the Eastern pass yonder 
and found myself in the Sierra — ‘pura Sierra / as the 
people here say.” 

“You’ll find it an awful wilderness,” said Macken- 
zie, warningly. “When I first came to Topia, it was 
by that route, and I thought I should never reach 
here. Such mountains! such canons! such woods! 
Why, for days we travelled through forests where 
the trees shut out the sun !” 

“It’s a way trees have, Mackenzie,” said Thorn- 
ton. “I don’t wonder at your surprise, since you 
come from a region where they are very scarce and 
quite incapable of such conduct. But if that is the 
worst you can charge against the Sierra-—” 

“The worst!” Mackenzie indignantly exclaimed. 
“You are either going straight up or straight down 
all the time — or at least most of the time, — climb- 
ing over great rocks, where the mules have to put 
their feet together and jump like cats; and where, if 


Armistead is Confidential. 113 

they should miss, there’s a thousand or two feet of 
fall waiting for you. You skirt precipices that 
might make the head of a goat swim ; and you sleep 
out in the woods, with the lively prospect that a 
mountain tiger may kill one of your animals before 
morning.” 

“All of which sounds perfectly delightful,” Miss 
Rivers declared. “But I am afraid you exaggerate. 
The mail is brought with great regularity over these 
mountains, and one never hears of the carrier or 
his mule falling over a precipice or suffering death 
from a mountain tiger. And all the shop-keepers 
in Topia get their goods by the same route.” 

“Do you suppose that if a mule falls over a preci- 
pice^ — or a man either — they post the fact in Topia?” 
Thornton asked. “The arrieros shrug their shoul- 
ders, pick up the fragments of the pack and go on.” 

“And to diversify the way pleasingly,” Armi- 
stead chimed in, “one comes every few miles upon a 
cross, or group of crosses, erected by the side of 
the road to show where travellers have been way- 
laid and killed.” 

“The crosses need not frighten you, Miss Rivers,” 
said Lloyd, quietly. “They were put up a long time 
ago, when there were many robbers among these 
wild heights. But all that is at an end now. The 
robbers have either been shot or have adopted safer 
modes of livelihood, and travelling in the Sierra is 
at present perfectly safe.” 


114 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

“That’s true as a general rule,” Thornton assent- 
ed. “But if I had an enemy I shouldn’t particularly 
care to meet him in the Sierra. I have heard of a 
few fresh crosses being put up even in my time.” 

“You’ve also heard of the speedy punishment of 
the murderers,” observed Lloyd. 

“Generally, yes. The rurales catch them and the 
government promptly shoots them. But I don’t feel 
that, personally, that would afford me much grati- 
fication after I had been bowled over on some of 
those trails. Not even the pious custom of putting 
up a cross where I had been killed would in such case 
be very satisfactory.” 

“Why should we talk of these things!” Isabel 
protested. “Mr. Lloyd says that there are no ban- 
dits in the Sierra now, and I am sure we, none of 
us, have any enemies.” 

“It’s very good of you to be sure,” said Thorn- 
ton; “but, unfortunately that is a thing of which 
one can never be quite certain. We gringos are not 
loved, you know; and by our manners, or distress- 
ing lack of manners, in dealing with the people, we 
sometimes make enemies when we are unconscious 
of it.” 

Armistead moved Uncomfortably. 

“I fully agree with Miss Rivers,” he said, “that 
this is an unnecessary discussion. There are many 
occasions in life in which a man must make ene- 
mies; but he can’t fail to do his duty on that ac- 
count, or — think of possible consequences.” 


Armistejad is Coni^idsntiai,. 115 

“Not even though he knew that a cross in the 
Sierra would be the result,” Thornton agreed light- 
ly. “But here comes the Gerente with a handful of 
papers ! My prophetic soul told me that there would 
be writing to do to-night for to-morrow’s mail.” 

“You boys must come to the office — we have some 
reports to make out,” observed Mr. Rivers as he 
drew near. “Lloyd, I should like a few words with 
you about these mineral districts. The company 
is agitating the question of a railway again.” 

Armistead looked after the others as they moved 
toward the office across the patio> ; and then, his gaze 
returning to Miss Rivers, as he looked at the charm- 
ing picture which she made, seated under the swing- 
ing Moorish lamp, he was conscious again of that 
sense of his exceeding good fortune which he had ex- 
pressed to Lloyd. For surely it was wonderful luck 
to find this beautiful, brilliant girl, a product and part 
of his own world, here in these remote wilds, ready 
to give him an attention which he knew that he 
could hardly have hoped for had he met her in the 
scenes amid which she usually moved. He leaned 
forward. It was impossible not to express what he 
felt so strongly. 

“I have had many lucky happenings in my life,” 
he said; “but never one, I think, quite so lucky as 
the pleasure of finding you in Topia at this time. It 
quite repays me for the hardships and disagreeables 
of coming here.” 

“You are very kind,” Isabel answered lightly — 


116 A Daughter the: Sie;rra. 

for nothing in the way of masculine ardor, however 
unexpected, ever surprised or discomposed her, — 
“but I don’t think that one needs to be repaid for 
coming to this delightful country.” 

“Delightful! It can’t be that you really find it 
so ?” 

“I really do. And just now I am extremely in- 
terested in the trip you have made to the Calderon 
hacienda. I was so pleased with Doha Victoria.” 

“I suppose you know who she is?” 

“Yes : papa told me. I was very much surprised 
to hear that she is Mr. Trafford’s daughter; al- 
though one should not be surprised at any result 
of divorce in California. Would you mind telling 
me how the situation came about? It seems very 
strange — here” 

When a beautiful woman, with the most fasci- 
nating smile and liquid eyes of softest hazel, says, 
“Would you mind telling me?” the result in the 
case of most men is a foregone conclusion. It was 
so with Armistead in this case. Beguiled by an in- 
terest which he mistook for sympathy, and pleased 
to gratify Miss Rivers, while at the same time grati- 
fying himself by talking of his own affairs — to many 
people the most interesting possible topic, — he re- 
lated the whole story of the Trafford marriage, of 
the manner in which the Mexican wife was divorced, 
of the claiming of the Santa Cruz Mine, and of the 
determination of mother and daughter to hold it. 

“Then that, of course, will end the matter,” said 


Armistead is Confidential. 117 

Isabel, when he reached this point. “Of course Mr. 
Trafford can’t think of forcing them to give it up.” 

Armistead shrugged his shoulders. 

“Trafford is not a man who gives up anything,” 
he said ; “and you see the mine is his” 

“You mean — legally?” 

“Legally, of course. There’s no other way of own- 
ing property.” 

“There is such a thing as moral right, you know.” 

“Perhaps so, but moral rights which are not rec- 
ognized by the law don’t amount to anything.” 

“Then he will try to obtain the mine?” 

“There is not a doubt of his obtaining it. I have 
been to Durango to consult lawyers and judges, and 
they all say his title is good. We have only to take 
possession.” 

“By force ?” 

“By force if necessary. I have a letter from Traf- 
ford to-day telling me to go ahead and do what- 
ever is to be done.” 

“It seems incredible! And — what are you going 
to do?” 

“Well, I don’t mind telling you that I have hit 
upon a plan which I hope will avoid trouble and 
litigation. I shall take a number of men, together 
with some officers of the law, go quietly out to Santa 
Cruz and take possession of the mine before they 
can make any resistance. After that it will be im- 
possible for them to regain possession of it.” 

“Oh!” Miss Rivers sank back in her chair and 


118 


A Daughter of the Sierra. 


stared at him. “How can you do anything so — 
treacherous ?” 

“Treacherous!” Armistead was surprised and 
wounded. “There’s nothing in the least treacherous 
about such a procedure. It’s done every day in Colo- 
rado and our other mining States. We have given 
them notice that the mine is ours, they refuse to 
surrender it, so we shall simply go and take it ; and 
to do so in the form of a surprise is merely a mili- 
tary stratagem.” 

“I see !” Miss Rivers’ tone indicated that she saw 
a good deal. “And will Mr. Lloyd assist you in 
this — military stratagem ?” 

“No!” Armistead replied with disgust. “Lloyd 
is a fool. Because his sympathies are with the 
women in the case, he refuses to assist me in any 
way, and has inconvenienced me greatly by this 
attitude. I have come to Topia now to try and find 
some one to take his place — some one who knows the 
country and language better than I do. I am hoping 
that Mr. Rivers may be able to recommend a man 
to me.” 

“I think — I hope that papa’s sympathies are with 
the women, too.” 

“My dear Miss Rivers!” Armistead was earnest- 
ly remonstrant. “You do me great injustice if you 
think my sympathies are not with them. But I am 
like a soldier, you know — acting under orders. And 
sympathies haven’t really anything to with Busi- 
ness. That’s what I can’t make Lloyd understand.” 


Armistead is Confidential. 


119 


“I am afraid you will never make me understand 
it either.” 

“Oh, one expects a charming woman to be — er — 
guided by her heart rather than her head ! It’s very 
disagreeable to me, I assure you, to have to carry 
out Mr. Trafford’s instructions; but I have no alter- 
native. And it wouldn’t help the Calderons if I re- 
fused to do so; for some one else would be sent to 
take possession of the mine.” 

“I quite understand that, and I am sure you must 
be sorry to have to do such an odious thing,” said 
Miss Rivers, magnanimously. “If I didn’t have 
some head as well as heart, I might detest you for 
it.” 

“That would be terrible. You couldn’t be so un- 
just.” 

“I think I could be, but I won’t; I will try to be 
reasonable and give you my sympathies, too. When 
do you think you will have your party in readiness 
to go and take the mine by surprise?” 

“That is impossible to say, because the party must 
consist of men who can be relied on and I don’t 
clearly see how I am to find these without Lloyd’s 
aid. It is very annoying that he is such a block- 
head — and obstinate as a mule.” 

“You can’t expect everyone to be as clear-sighted 
as yourself where matters of — er— business are con- 
cerned,” observed Miss Rivers, sweetly. “Yonder 
comes Mr. Lloyd now. Perhaps you don’t want to 
talk of this matter before him?” 


120 


A Daughter or thr Sirrra. 


“Oh, I shouldn’t mind! He would never think 
of betraying my plan, I am sure. But probably it 
is best to regard what I have told you as confiden- 
tial.” 

“I shall not repeat it to any one,” she assured him. 


CHAPTER XI. 


in The; plaza. 

I T was Sunday morning, and Topia wore its most 
8 festal air; not only because of the brilliant sun- 
shine and crystal atmosphere, which lent something 
of that aspect even to the towering, rock-faced 
heights, but because the streets were filled with men 
who, having been paid off the night before, were 
now industriously spending their money in the 
tiendas, and consuming mescal in such liberal quan- 
tities as would have seemed to promise frightful 
disorder later. But the disorder of Topia was 
never so great that the single policeman of the mu- 
nicipality was not able to deal with it. The right of 
a man to drink himself into a state of intoxication 
was fully recognized; and when he became reduced 
either to insensibility, to a maudlin condition of 
noisiness, or to a desire to fight all his friends and 
acquaintances, those friends were prompt to carry 
him away to a place of seclusion. These scenes, 
moreover, occurred only in the afternoon and even- 
ing. At ten o’clock in the morning the future borr- 
achos were still in a state of sobriety, filling the 
shops, the sidewalks and the plaza with their clean 
white cotton garments and red blankets. 

121 


1 22 


A Daughter or the Sierra. 


At this time also the better class were very much 
in evidence; and those who may fancy that Topia 
does not possess a better class should go there and 
sit in the plaza on a Sunday morning, in order to 
be convinced to the contrary. A place where for 
many years money has poured out of the earth in a 
constant stream, like water out of a fountain, must 
have its plutocrats ; and plutocrats, as we know, are 
speedily and easily converted into aristocrats. 
Among the well-dressed and perfectly-mannered 
men who appear on the streets of this old robber 
stronghold of the Sierra, there are some who are 
descended from its original inhabitants; others are 
strangers, and many are foreigners. There is a pic- 
turesque mingling of nationalities to be seen in the 
plaza of Topia. 

While the church bell is ringing out its call to 
Mass, the air is fragrant with roses, and graceful, 
dark-eyed women are coming in all directions, with 
prayer-books and beads in their hands and folding- 
stools hanging on their arms. In an American town 
of the same class one knows what one would prob- 
ably find in the feminine element, — what lack of 
taste in dress, what love of crude and violent color, 
what hopeless vulgarity of appearance and manners. 
But these women might be princesses, as they glide 
along, clothed in dark fabrics, wrapped in silken and 
lace draperies, with dignity in their bearing, and 
much delicate loveliness in the faces under the 
fringed parasols. They were just now passing in 


In the: Plaza. 


123 


numbers toward the open door of the church ; for the 
second call had ended, and at the third Mass would 
begin. A group of young men — chiefly Caridad em- 
ployees, — seated on a bench in the sunshine, found 
it necessary to rise to their feet every few minutes 
and uncover in response to a smile, a flash of eyes 
and teeth, and a musical “Buenos dias, senores!” It 
was in an interval of this performance that Thorn- 
ton turned to Lloyd, who was one of the group. 

“I had almost forgotten that I have a message 
for you,” he said. “ A party are going out this after- 
noon to eat tamales at the San Benito Mine, and you 
and Armistead are invited to join us.” 

“Who are ‘us’?” Lloyd inquired carelessly. 

“Oh, all the elite of Topia, I believe! The San 
Benito belongs to the richest man here, you know — 
Don Luis Gonzales. There will be music and danc- 
ing, and Miss Rivers told me to see that you bring 
your sketch-book.” 

“How does Miss Rivers know that I have a 
sketch-book ?” 

“I told her that there was an artist spoiled when 
you became a mining engineer and prospector.” 

“What was the good of yarning about me so ab- 
surdly? Miss Rivers can make more satisfactory 
pictures with her camera than I can with a pen- 
cil.” 

“She doesn’t think so — and here she comes to 
speak for herself.” 

Lloyd looked up quickly. It was indeed Isabel 


124 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

Rivers coming between the rose-hedges, trans- 
formed into a high-born Spanish maiden by the black 
lace mantilla thrown over her sunny hair. .She 
paused, smiling, as the men rose. 

“I am glad to see you, Mr. Lloyd,” she said. 
“Won’t you and Mr. Armistead dine with us to- 
day, and go to the picnic afterward ? I suppose you 
have been invited.” 

“Thornton was just saying something about it,” 
Lloyd replied. “But I am rather an unsociable per- 
son, and I’m afraid that going out to the San Benito 
to eat tamales doesn’t appeal to me very strongly.” 

“Oh, but it should appeal to you as something im- 
mensely picturesque!” she said. “You simply must 
go. I am sure it will be delightful. And be certain 
to bring your sketch-book : Mr. Thornton tells me 
you draw admirably — ah, there is the third call 
for Mass! I shall expect all of you to dinner. 
Hasta luego!” 

She passed on toward the open door of the church, 
into which men and women were hastily pouring 
from all sides; while Thornton laughed at the ex- 
pression of Lloyd’s face. 

“Viva la reina!” he said. “It would take a bold 
man to disobey her commands. Well I’ll see you 
later. Now I must put in an appearance at church. 
No, I’m not a Catholic; but Miss Rivers is, you 
know ; and I think she probably looks upon me with 
a more favorable eye if she has seen me leaning in 
the doorway during Mass. It shows that I have a 


In the: Plaza. 


125 


mind free from prejudice and perhaps — under cer- 
tain circumsances — open to influence. Come, Mac!” 

Mackenzie — a Catholic by inheritance, being a 
Scotchman of Highland ancestry — rose, together 
with two or three Mexicans who also formed part 
of the occupants of the bench, and moved toward 
the already overflowing door of the church which 
opened on the plaza. LJoyd sat still in the sun- 
shine a little longer; and then, as the sound of the 
organ came out to him, he also rose and walked 
round to the door which opened on the street, where 
the crowd was less. Here, leaning like Thornton 
against the side of the doorway, he looked over 
a scene familiar to all sojourners in Mexico, — a 
compact mass of people, filling the church (a nave 
without aisles) from wall to wall; the women 
kneeling on the brick floor, the men mostly 
standing until the solemn part of the Mass. At the 
farther end of the vista candles were gleaming on 
an altar, before which a priest was slowly moving 
to and fro. Tloyd had but a vague idea of what 
was progressing there, but the scene appealed to 
some instinct of his nature which he hardly under- 
stood — it was, in fact, the instinct of worship, the 
deep-seated human need to turn to something higher 
than itself, — while a certain fineness of mental and 
spiritual fibre, together with a fair amount of cul- 
ture, enabled him to feel and in a measure enjoy the 
antiquity and poetry of the mysterious rite. 


126 A Daughter of the: Sie;rra. 

Nevertheless, since he understood little of the de- 
tails of the service, his glance wandered idly over 
the crowded mass of people, — over the rebozo-cov- 
ered heads of women of the lower orders and the 
lace-draped heads of ladies; over the forms of men 
standing with folded arms; some in careful, fash- 
ionable dress, others wrapped in blankets ; — all 
grave, quiet, reverential, ready to sink on their knees 
when the bell should sound in the sanctuary. Among 
them were many faces which he knew ; but suddenly 
his gaze was arrested by one which, although he was 
conscious of having seen it before, he could not at 
once identify. And yet it was striking enough to 
remember, — the face of a young man who held his 
handsome head uplifted with an arrogant air which 
after an instant enabled Lloyd to recognize him. 
For it was Arturo Vallejo; and just so he had stood, 
just so held his head when he contemptuously trans- 
lated Armistead’s speech at Las Joyas. 

The sight of him recalled vividly to Lloyd’s mind 
the recollection of Las Joyas and of the conflict over 
the Santa Cruz. He had little doubt that it was 
something relating to this conflict which had brought 
young Vallejo to Topia. Was it perhaps to meet 
Armistead? It seemed unlikely; but since his re- 
fusal to assist in any active steps to assert Trafford’s 
claim on the mine, he knew nothing of how the situ- 
ation stood nor what Armistead’s plans in regard to 
obtaining possession of the property were. If any 
chance should enable him to know or to guess these 


In the: PtazA. 


127 


plans, it would afford him pleasure to give even 
this somewhat ill-mannered young Mexican a hint 
of what was to be anticipated; but there seemed 
no probability of getting such information, unless — 
and here a sudden flash of enlightenment came to 
him. Past night, had not Miss Rivers when he 
bade her good-night murmured some words which 
he had not understood, but which now returned to 
him with a clear apprehension of their meaning? 
“I am in a quandary,” she had said, “and I want 
to talk to you about it.” 

A quandary! The expression possessed no sig- 
nificance for him then, and he had made some light 
reply about being at her service always. But now, 
remembering her conversation with Armistead, he 
understood; and understood also, in slow, mascu- 
line fashion, the command which had been in her 
eyes when she bade him join the picnic party that 
afternoon. On such an occasion there would be 
many opportunities for the talk she wanted, especial- 
ly if he obeyed her other command and carried his 
sketch-book along. It was not, he told himself, 
what he desired : to be brought into confidential re- 
lations of any kind with this girl, whose charm he 
felt might be so potent and sink so deep; but at 
present there seemed no escape for him. Not only, 
as Thornton had said, would he be a bold man 
who disobeyed Isabel Rivers’ commands, but the 
appearance of Arturo Vallejo quickened the mem- 
ory of the other girl whom he had promised to help. 


128 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

If this help might be obtained through Miss' Rivers, 
he was bound to go even to the length of exposing 
himself to possible danger — the danger of finding 
a hard-won peace of mind and heart taken from 
him again by the witchery of a woman’s face and 
a woman’s smile — in order to obtain it. 

The bell in the sanctuary sounded. The men 
dropped on their knees. Lloyd waited a few min- 
utes until the solemn hush was over, and then turned 
away from the door, back to the sunlight and roses 
of the plaza. As he did so he looked up at the vast, 
solemn heights encircling the valley, and a great 
longing stirred within him to find himself in the 
wild, green solitudes which lay beyond them, — the 
solitude so high-uplifted toward heaven, so remote 
from the world of men’s sordid struggles, where 
he had never failed to find content, pleasure and 
health. Yes, the sooner he saddled his mule and was 
out in the Sierra again the better. To-morrow per- 
haps — 

“Hello!” It was Armistead’s voice, in a tone of 
much surprise. “Have you been to church? The 
confounded bells wouldn’t let me sleep, so I had to 
come out ; though how one is to get through the day 
in this beastly place — ” 

“There are alleviations promised,” said Lloyd, 
regarding with some amusement the other’s careful 
toilet and air of being on exceedingly good terms 
with himself and the order of things in general. “For 
one, you are invited to dine at the Casa de la Car- 
idad— ” 


In the PivAZA. 129 

“Oh, very good! You’ve seen some of the Caridad 
people, then?” 

“Yes. It’s the early bird that catches the worm — 
or is himself caught, you know. I’ve had the 
pleasure of receiving the commands of the Lady 
of the Caridad. We are to report for dinner; and 
then, with a select party, go out this afternoon to 
eat tamales at a mine near by.” 

“Why at a mine?” 

“The nature of the country answers that ques- 
tion. The patio of a mine affords the only space 
sufficiently level even for the eating of tamales ” 

Armistead gave a comprehensive glance around 
at the precipitous heights. 

“Are you sure that Miss Rivers is going?” he 
asked skeptically. 

“Perfectly sure. She thinks that it would be 
picturesque, and says she would not miss it for any- 
thing.” 

“In that case of course I’ll go; although it strikes 
me it will be a tremendous bore. Miss Rivers, how- 
ever, would make anything endurable. I’m more 
and more struck with what an extremely lucky thing 
it is that she should chance to be here.” 

“Lucky for — ?” 

“For me, of course — I wouldn’t be presumptuous 
enough to intimate that it may prove lucky for her 
also. But think of the difference her being here 
makes — and, by Jove, yonder she is !” 

Lloyd looked after him as he pushed his way 


130 A Daughter of the: Sie;rra. 

through the people, now thronging out of the church, 
to Isabel Rivers’ side. 

“Extremely lucky for him that she happens to 
be here!” Rloyd repeated to himself meditatively. 
“It’s barely possible that he may find reason to 
change his mind on that point before all is said and 
done — ah, Don Arturo ! how are you ? And how are 
the family at Las Joyas? You see I remember that 
you speak English.” 

There was anything but a cordial light in Arturo 
Vallejo’s dark eyes as he replied coldly, in almost 
the exact words he had employed at Las Joyas : 

“I no spik English well, senor.” 

“Perhaps not, but you understand it well — I re- 
member that. And we can talk in Spanish, if you 
prefer.” 

“I do not know that we have anything of which to 
talk, senor,” the young man answered distantly, in 
his own language. 

Lloyd smiled. 

“I think we might find a subject,” he said. “May 
I ask if any of the family of Las Joyas are with 
you in Topia?” 

“No, senor.” There was suspicion as well as 
coldness now in the tone and eyes. “I am here 
alone.” 

“I am sorry. I should like to see Doha Victoria.” 

Vallejo started angrily. 

“I am sure that Dona Victoria would not wish 
to see you,” he said rudely. 


In the: Plaza. 


131 


“Do not be too sure of that,” Lloyd replied quiet- 
ly. “I think Doha Victoria is aware that I am her 
friend.” 

“You have proved it so well!” the young Mexi- 
can cried in a tone of sarcasm. 

“I have not had very much opportunity to prove 
it,” Lloyd said ; “but Doha Victoria was good 
enough to believe that in the matter of the Santa 
Cruz my sympathy is with her.” 

Don Arturo permitted himself a very cheap sneer. 

“Doha Victoria is a woman !” he said. 

“And has a woman’s instinct to recognize sincer- 
ity,” Lloyd returned. 

“You talk of sincerity — of sympathy — of friend- 
ship for her,” the other cried indignantly, “when I 
have just seen you with our enemy !” 

“He is not my enemy, you know,” Lloyd re- 
marked dispassionately. “And in point of fact, he 
is not your enemy either. He is only Mr. Trafford’s 
agent.” 

“It is the same thing. He is trying to rob — ” 

“Suppose we find a quieter place in which to dis- 
cuss the subject?” Lloyd suggested; for the people 
about them began to cast curious glances at the 
angry face and excited manner of the young Mexi- 
can. 

But Arturo threw back his head in its charac- 
teristic pose. 

“We have nothing to discuss,” he replied. “I un- 
derstand what you want. It is that I shall talk, be- 


132 A Daughter or the Sierra. - 

tray myself, tell you our plans perhaps, because 
you profess to be sympathetic. You must think, 
senor, that Mexicans are great fools.” 

“Not all of them,” answered Lloyd, tolerantly. 
“It is a pity your father did not come to Topia. I 
should have been glad to talk with him. But now — ” 
he shrugged his shoulders slightly. “Life has a 
great deal to teach you,” he added; “and I hope 
the first lesson will be that it is very bad policy, 
not to speak of bad manners, to insult any one, 
especially one who might have the power to aid you 
materially. Good-day !” 


CHAPTER XII. 


THE USE AND EATE OE A SKETCH. 

T HE sun, which in Topia disappears very early 
behind the great rampart of the western heights, 
was dropping toward these heights, and the latter 
were already stretching their long shadows out over 
the sun-bathed valley, when the picnic party left the 
town. It had been said that they were to leave 
promptly at three o’clock , — punta de la hora; and 
since they finally started at four, they probably came 
as near to punctuality as anybody ever arrives in 
Mexico. 

The San Benito Mine was very well situated 
as an objective point for such an excursion. It lay 
close to the town, in the heights that on the western 
side immediately overshadow it. All Miss Rivers’ 
love of the picturesque was gratified by the appear- 
ance of the procession, which, leaving the prin- 
cipal thoroughfare, passed down a short, rocky, 
canon-like street, crossed on stepping stones, over 
a stream which flows through the gorge, and then, 
climbing up the steep hill immediately beyond, fol- 
lowed a narrow path which wound around its side. 
Very Mexican was the order of progression. Arm 
in arm, gaily talking and laughing with each other, 
went the girls in advance. Following them more 
sedately was a group of matrons \ and, at a con- 
133 


134 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


siderable interval, behind came a number of men. 
Between the feminine and masculine contingent was 
the Caridad party, — Mr. Rivers beguiling the way 
by expressing very freely (in English) his opinion 
of the absurdity of the arrangement. 

“Those men should be in front with the girls, not 
only for mutual pleasure but for practical useful- 
ness,” he declared. “It isn’t as if they were circling 
round the plaza, or even walking on level ground. 
There’s positive need — take care, Isabel ! Look 
out for your footing! — of their assistance. Some 
of these old women will be rolling down the 
mountain presently — ah, I thought so!” (A stout 
lady in front stumbled and almost fell.) “Permit 
me senora, to assist you.” 

“Muchas gracias, sehor !” murmured the lady. 
“Muy malo el camino!” 

“Very bad indeed,” Mr. Rivers assented; and 
then, seeing his way to making a suggestion, went 
on in fluent Spanish: “It strikes me, senora, that' 
those young men” — he waved his hand backward — 
“ought to be here, assisting the ladies over the road. 
Every lady should be provided with an escort.” 

“Is that the custom in your country, senor?” 

“Undoubtedly. And it adds very much to the en- 
joyment of an occasion like this.” 

“Ah !” said the senora, in a tone of much signifi- 
cance. “I can believe it. But with us it is dif- 
ferent. We have other customs.” 

“And long may they keep them!” said Isabel* 


The Use and Fate oe a Sketch. 135 


laughing at her father’s slightly discomfited expres- 
sion as he fell back. “The world would be a very un- 
interesting place if there were no variety in its man- 
ners and customs. And for my part I like these. 
Fancy how much more possibility of romance there 
is between young people here than between those 
who associate together as freely as they do with 
us!” 

“And how much room for disillusion when ro- 
mance is converted into knowledge by marriage!” 
Thornton added. 

“The practical result is otherwise,” she answered. 
“Those who know Mexico best tell us that one 
rarely hears of an unhappy marriage, and a broken 
household is almost unknown.” 

“Miss Rivers is right,” said Lloyd. “The do- 
mestic virtues of these woman are beyond praise. 
They don’t clamor for rights or careers ; they 
don’t form clubs and make speeches ; but they 
make homes and govern them in an old and very 
wise fashion.” 

“All the same, I am sure that Miss Rivers would 
not like to be bound by their hard and fast social 
rules,” Armistead observed. 

“Perhaps not,” Miss Rivers acknowledged, “be- 
cause I am a product of other social conditions. 
And I like freedom, but not the freedom that leads 
to forgetfulness of manners first and duties after- 
ward — Oh, what a view of the quebrada ! Mr. Lloyd, 
what can we do with this ?” 

“Not much more than admire it, I’m afraid,” 
Lloyd replied. 


136 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

It was indeed a striking view of the great chasm 
which opened before them as they turned the shoul- 
der of the hill around which they were winding. 
Far below, in its dark depths, they caught the gleam 
of water ; while on either side rolled up vast, broken 
heights, — their rugged crests, bathed in sunlight, 
standing against a sky of jewel-like brilliancy and 
intensity of color. It was a scene of such wild 
grandeur that to think of reproducing it by camera 
or by pencil was to realize the littleness of man’s 
art in the presence of Nature at her greatest. 

“It is hopeless,” Isabel confessed, with a sigh. 
“To attempt to photograph this would be as useless 
as it would be impertinent.” 

“Lloyd can do wonders with sepia,” Thornton 
suggested. 

“I can do something,” Lloyd admitted. “But I 
agree with Miss Rivers that to attempt to put this 
scene on paper would be hopeless.” 

“I am not sure about that when it is a question 
of sepia,” Isabel said. “You might try, — just a 
sketch, you know.” 

“Here we are at the mine,” said her father. 

As he spoke they stepped from the narrow path 
they had been following onto a level space — the 
patio of the mine, a platform about fifty feet.square, 
cut out of the almost precipitous mountain-side. On 
it the ore from the workings was brought for sort- 
ing, and from it the debris was dumped. On the 
inner side was the great arched opening of the mine 


The Use and Fate oe a Sketch. 137 

into the mountain, which towered high and steep 
above; and over the door of this tunnel a shed, 
as wide as an ordinary corridor, led to the office — 
a small building at one end. The rest of the patio 
was open to the sky; and its outer edge dropped 
sheer to the depth of the quebrada, a thousand feet 
below. Preparations had been made for the coming 
of the pleasure party. The ground had been care- 
fully swept, seats were placed under the shed, musi- 
cians were assembled ; servants were lounging 
around the door of the office, within which pre- 
sumably the tamales had been deposited; and as 
the merry throng spread out over the space, filling 
it with life, movement, gaiety, it was a picture 
which for striking contrasts would have been hard 
to match. In a few minutes, the masculine contin- 
gent having arrived, the musicians began playing a 
waltz, and one couple after another responded to its 
invitation. Soon the whole patio was filled with 
young people dancing with all the grace and joyous 
abandon of their Spanish blood. 

“Isn’t it charming!” Miss Rivers exclaimed, as 
she stood watching the scene. “What wouldn’t I 
give to be able to seize and put it away, to refresh 
myself with on some cold gray day, in a tame coun- 
try, among a lifeless people!” 

“You are immensely flattering to your own peo- 
ple,” Thornton said, with a laugh. “Won’t you let 
some of us prove that we are not altogether life- 
less?” He held out his hand. “Can you resist this 
music ?” 


138 A Daughter op the Sierra. 

“The music with difficulty, the floor — shall we 
call it? — with ease,” she answered. “Still, I like 
new sensations; so I’ll try how it goes to waltz on 
the patio of a mine — just once.” 

The next moment she was floating around with 
the rest over the hard-packed but somewhat un- 
even surface of the ground; and to more than one 
pair of watching eyes she seemed the incarnation not 
only of grace — grace a little different from that of 
the Mexican girls, because there was in it a quality 
which suggested another and very different world 
— but also of that healthy, happy delight in life 
which does not disdain the simplest pleasures. 

As she might have foreseen, however, she was 
not able to limit her dancing to “just once.” When 
she paused Armistead claimed a turn, and then half 
a dozen Mexicans thronged around her. So she 
danced with one after another, while Thornton came 
up to Lloyd and grumbled. 

“If I’d known I was letting her in for this kind 
of thing, I’d never have asked her to dance,” he 
said. “Anybody else would just refuse those fellows 
— tell ’em she’s tired, that the ground hurts her 
feet, — but no ! That’s Miss Rivers ! Does some- 
thing confoundedly disagreeable for the sake of 
other people and then declares she enjoys it.” 

“Perhaps she does enjoy it. Consideration for 
others is so rare that we must find some selfish rea- 
son to account for its existence at all.” 

“Hum!” Thornton lighted a cigarette. “Look 


The Use and Fate oe a Sketch. 139 


at that fellow Martinez, how he is beaming all over ! 
Why don’t you go and have your turn also? She 
dances delightfully.” 

“And let her wear out her feet practising the vir- 
tue of unselfishness on my behalf? Why don’t you 
follow her example and go and dance with some of 
those Mexican girls?” 

“Good Heavens ! who could think of dancing for 
the sake of dancing on a place like this? It makes 
my head swim to look over the edge and think where 
one would go if one waltzed a little too far. We’ve 
heard of shivering and balancing and doing various 
other uncomfortable things on the edge of a preci- 
pice, but I’m sure nobody ever heard of dancing on 
the edge of one before.” 

“The idea is certainly quite Topian — if not 
Utopian. But, as a matter of social duty, you ought 
to take the risk and support the credit of the Cari- 
dad.” 

“Mackenzie’s doing enough for the whole staff. 
He has already waltzed with every girl here, and 
now he’s making a second round. But here comes 
Miss Rivers. She has cut short her career of self- 
sacrifice — unless she’s coming to ask you to dance, 
since you haven’t asked her.” 

But it appeared that Miss Rivers had a very dif- 
ferent purpose in view. 

“O Mr. Lloyd,” she said, “I am so concerned 
about your sketch! If it isn’t made now, there will 
be no time to make it at all; for we shall soon be 


140 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

called to drink chocolate and eat tamales, and after 
that it will be too late to do anything except go 
home. Won’t you come and try what you can do 
in the way of making a picture out of this wonder- 
ful scene?” 

“I’m at your orders, Miss Rivers/’ Lloyd an- 
swered. “But the quebrada is rather a large com- 
mission, you know. Suppose you show me the point 
of view you care for.” 

“I don’t care for this,” she said, indicating the 
patio. “I want the view of the quebrada. Oh, I 
know it’s a large commission ! But you can try. And 
I think the place to try is a little farther on around 
the mountain. I’ll show you where I mean.” 

Thornton, who did not feel encouraged to offer 
his assistance in this search after the picturesque, 
watched them with rather a cynical eye as they 
walked across the patio. 

“It’s a hopeless case with Lloyd, as with the rest 
of us,” he reflected ; “else wild horses couldn’t have 
dragged him here. And how obediently he does her 
bidding, — he who couldn’t be brought within speak- 
ing distance of a woman a little while ago! Yet I’ll 
swear there’s no coquetry in it. If there were, the 
charm wouldn’t be half as powerful as it is.” 

Lloyd himself had not the least doubt on the last 
point. No man would have been quicker to detect 
even a shade of coquetry in the beautiful eyes with 
their golden lights, in the tones of the sweet, frank 
voice, or in the manner full of that highest ease 


The: Use and Fate oe a Sketch. 141 

which is as free from familiarity as from constraint. 
But underneath Isabel Rivers’ charm lay an ex- 
quisite sincerity, an absolute freedom from the small 
demands which many women are constantly making 
for admiration, and a possibility of sympathetic 
comradeship not to be mistaken. And so there was 
no more thought of the possibilities for flirtation 
which the situation contained in Lloyd's mind than 
in her own, as they walked together on the nar- 
row mountain road, a little beyond the patio where 
the music was playing and the dancers were circling 
in the face of a scene so full of wild majesty and 
stern sublimity that it seemed as if it must inspire 
awe in the most careless soul. 

"What do you think of this?” Isabel asked, as 
they paused at a point which commanded an ad- 
mirable view of the great earth-rift, in the depth 
of which shadows were already gathering, although 
sunlight still gilded the summits of its eastern 
heights. "It is tremendous — but magnificent.” 

"I’ll see what I can do with it,” Lloyd answered 
guardedly. 

They seated themselves on some stones, and he 
dashed the outlines of the picture on his paper with 
bold, firm, rapid strokes, shading in almost as quick- 
ly as he drew. It was such skilful work that Isabel 
watched with fascinated attention as it grew under 
his hand. 

"I have seen engineers before who sketched well 
from nature,” she said at length; "but yours isn’t 


142 A Daughter oe the: Sierra. . 

work of that kind. It is the work of an artist — 
a real artist. They were right who said so.” 

“Oh, no!” Eloyd responded quietly. “It’s only 
the work of one who possesses a little more facility 
than is common. I am inclined to think it is a fatal 
gift, that of facility,” he went on after a moment. 
“A man who does many things well hardly ever 
does any one thing superlatively well. It is the nar- 
row, concentrated man who succeeds in life.” 

“I am not sure of that. The power to do many 
things well must tell in the one thing upon which 
a man concentrates himself.” 

“Such men rarely do concentrate themselves. 
They diffuse their power over too many things, and 
there’s temptation in all of them. Now, I — but 
there’s no need to point the moral by becoming 
egotistical. That I am prospecting in the Sierra 
points it sufficiently, as far as I am concerned.” 

A short silence, during which the sketch grew 
in a most satisfactory manner ; and then Isabel said : 

“I can understand the temptation of being able 
to do too many things, and the pleasure of doing 
them all. But I am confident that if such a man 
once finds a sufficient incentive to concentrate his 
powers, he will accomplish more than the man to 
whom nature has given the capability of doing only 
one thing.” 

“Experience is against you,” Eloyd replied. “And 
— where is the incentive to be found ?” 

Isabel lifted her glance from the slender, nervous, 


The: Use: and Fate: of a Sketch. 143 

sunburnt hands she had been watching in their work, 
to the clear-cut face with its impress of thought 
and feeling and its shadow of hopelessness. 

“There are many incentives,” she answered; “and 
different incentives appeal to different natures. But 
there is one which, like a master-key that opens 
all locks, should appeal to all.” 

“And that is—?” 

“Duty.” 

“I’m afraid you are very old-fashioned, Miss 
Rivers. Duty, like a good many other things we 
used to be told to admire, has been laid on the shelf, 
— hasn’t it? And doesn’t it strike you that we’ve 
been led rather far afield by my slight facility in 
sketching?” 

“Perhaps so,” said Miss Rivers, and then was si- 
lent again for a moment. An instinct told her that 
this man, with the face of a thinker and the hands 
of an artist, had drifted somewhat from his moor- 
ings; that he had lost faith in many things beside 
duty ; and also that, unlike most people, he was not at 
all anxious to talk of himself. She had too much 
tact to pursue the subject on which they had acci- 
dentally fallen; and, moreover, it now occurred to 
her that she had brought him here for quite another 
purpose, and that it was impossible to count upon 
being left very long without interruption. 

“Do you remember,” she said suddenly, under 
the spur of the last thought, “that when we talked 
of the claim which Mr. Armistead is pressing for 


144 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

the possession of the Santa Cruz Mine, I told you 
that I would find out if possible what steps he was 
going to take against the present owners ? I believe 
you were doubtful of my success — ” 

“Was I?” Lloyd asked, smiling. “If so, I apolo- 
gize for lack of faith. I am now thoroughly con- 
vinced that you would succeed in whatever you un- 
der took/ ’ 

“That’s very good of you. But, as a matter of 
fact, I have both succeeded and failed. I have found 
out all that he intends to do, but I can’t use the 
knowledge because it was imparted ‘confidentially.’ 
Isn’t that a hard situation?” 

“It’s inconvenient certainly, if you want to help 
Dona Victoria.” 

“I do want to help her, — indeed, I am determined 
that I will help her ; yet I don’t see how I can with- 
out violating confidence. Can’t you assist me, Mr. 
Lloyd? That is what I have brought you here to 
ask.” 

“I shall be delighted to assist you in any way,” 
Lloyd replied, “if you will tell me what you want 
me to do.” 

“I want you to do something so difficult that I 
am afraid you will never be able to accomplish it,” 
she answered, half laughing. “I want you to find 
out what I can’t tell you.” 

“Find out from whom?” 

“Why, from me, since I am the only person at 
present, except Mr. Armistead, who knows. Sup- 


The; Use; and Fats os a Sketch. 145 


pose you were a diplomatist or a detective and I 
was a person holding important information which 
you were very anxious to obtain, how would you 
set about making me betray it?” 

Lloyd shook his head. 

“1 can’t possibly imagine myself either a diplo- 
matist or a detective,” he said ; “and I am perfectly 
sure that even if I were both I could not make you 
betray any secret you wanted to keep.” 

“But if I didn’t want to keep it — only, of course, 
that won’t do. I must keep it just as resolutely as 
if I were not anxious to betray it; mustn’t I?” 

“I — suppose so.” 

“The fact that I should be serving a good cause 
by betraying it would be no excuse,” she proceeded 
dejectedly. “I never could have imagined that I 
should feel sympathy for an ‘informer,’ but I do. 
I am simply dying to tell you all I know; and yet 
how can I when Mr. Armistead asked me to con- 
sider it confidential, and when I said I would ?” 

“Then of course you can’t tell it,” Lloyd agreed. 

“No, of course I can’t,” she repeated. She clasped 
her hands around her knees and gazed meditatively 
into the depths of the quebrada. “You are not much 
help, Mr. Lloyd,” she added after a moment. 

“Not the least, I’m afraid,” Lloyd agreed again. 

“Now, if you were Mr. Armistead,” Miss Rivers 
went on, “you would set your wits to work to find 
out all that I can’t tell : you would cross-question and 
try to entrap me, and end by guessing the whole 
thing.” 


146 A Daughter oe the Sierra. . 

“I think it very likely Armistead would do all 
that,” Lloyd answered. “But you see I am no more 
Armistead than I am a diplomatist or a detective.” 

“Is there no way, then, that my knowledge can 
be made of use?” she asked despairingly. 

“Let me see!” said Lloyd, meditatively. He 
shaded his sketch absently while he reflected, and 
Miss Rivers watched him with an expression of 
mingled doubt and hope on her face. “Suppose we 
look at it in this way,” he went on at length, glanc- 
ing up at her. “As a friend of Dona Victoria, you 
wish to warn her against a danger which threatens 
her ; and you have — at least in my opinion — a right 
to do as much as this, although you can not tell 
her the exact form of the danger. Now, is it a 
danger against which she is prepared?” 

Miss Rivers shook her head emphatically. 

“At least we have no reason to suppose so,” she 
added. 

“Then it does not take a legal form ; for she is un- 
doubtedly prepared for anything in that line.” 

Isabel felt that the gray eyes reading her face 
grew suddenly very keen. 

“It must take the form of force. Ah, I see! — the 
mine is to be surprised, of course. You needn’t make 
such a desperate effort not to nod assent, Miss 
Rivers. I know I am right, even if your eyes didn’t 
tell me so. It is just what Trafford and Armistead 
would do.” 

“But I haven’t told you really!” she cried, smit- 


The: Use: and Fate: of a Sketch. 147 


ten with remorse now that her purpose was ac- 
complished. 

“You have done nothing except put my slow wits 
to work,” he assured her. 

“They were not very slow when they once got 
to work,” she answered. “And now, supposing your 
guess to be right, what will you do?” 

“That requires some consideration. There is a 
young fellow here from Las Joyas who might be 
of service if one could give him a hint. But he is, 
unfortunately, quite impossible: suspicious, distrust- 
ful ; also, as a trifling matter of detail, insulting, — 
in brief, a young fool.” 

“Couldn’t / do anything with him ?” 

“Certainly. You could turn his head so complete- 
ly that he would not know whether he was walking 
on it or on his feet. But that wouldn’t help matters 
much, since you couldn't yourself give him any 
warning, you know.” 

“Still — ” she was beginning, with a laugh, when 
he startled her by dropping his drawing and spring- 
ing to his feet. 

Far up the mountain-side above them there was 
a dull, crashing sound. As Lloyd seized the girl, 
raised and drew her swiftly to one side, the sound 
became a roar: a great boulder, dislodged from 
its place several hundred feet higher, came crashing 
down the steep declivity, bringing shrubs, stones, 
earth with it; falling upon the spot where they had 
been seated an instant before, effacing everything 


148 A Daughter of' the: Sie;rra. 

there, and then continuing on its way of destruction 
into the depths of the quebrada far below. 

They looked at each other — the two whom Death 
had passed so closely that they had felt his wind 
stirring their garments. Both were pale, but entire- 
ly composed. Isabel spoke first : 

“Thank you for being so quick! In another mo- 
ment — ” 

“The rock would have been on us,” Lloyd said, a 
little hoarsely. “That must be my excuse for drag- 
ging you away so roughly.” 

“As if an excuse were needed for saving my life !” 
She glanced up at the mountain above them. “What 
on earth do you suppose sent that boulder down 
just then?” 

“Impossible to say. The disintegrating forces of 
nature are at work all the time, you know. The 
quebrada is strewed from end to end with such 
boulders.” 

“I remember.” Her gaze fell into the shadow- 
filled depths of the great chasm below, and she 
shuddered a little. “But I didn’t imagine the moun- 
tains were still sending them down like this. It is 
most — inconsiderate.” Her glance suddenly re- 
turned to him. “Your sketch, Mr. Lloyd, — what has 
become of it?” 

“It has gone, together with several hundred tons 
of rock, to assist in filling up the channel of the 
Tamezula River.” 

“Oh, how dreadful !” 


The Use and Fate oe a Sketch. 149 


“I fancy your friends who are coming yonder 
would think it still more dreadful if I had saved the 
sketch and let you go.” 

In fact, the crashing descent of the rock had 
brought the entire picnic party streaming out from 
the patio of the mine to the narrow shelf-like road. 
Although reassured by the sight of the two figures, 
they came on to examine the trail of the boulder’s 
descent, and exclaim over the narrow escape of those 
who had been so directly in its path. 

“Mr. Lloyd pulled me aside just in time, papa,” 
Isabel said. “I did not hear the noise, and but for 
him I should have been crushed; for you see there 
is no vestige left of the stone on which I was sit- 
ting.” 

Mr. Rivers looked at the spot and then at Lloyd. 

“Good thing you had your wits about you,” he 
said to the latter, “else we might search for the 
remains of both of you down in the quebrada.” 

“We were just about to summon you to the 
tamalaSy senorita, when the fearful noise startled 
us,” said a pretty girl, passing her arm through 
Isabel’s. “Oh, what a fearful shock for you! Would 
you not like a little aguardiente?” 

“Oh, no, thanks! I don’t feel the least need of 
aguardiente,” Isabel answered, smiling. 

“But you must take something to sustain you. A 
cup of chocolate, then?” 

Isabel agreed that a cup of chocolate might pos- 
sibly do her good, so she was led to where the col- 


150 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. . 


lation was arranged under the shed of the patio. 
Here a cup of sweet, foaming chocolate and a plate 
of tamales were brought to her. Here also Thorn- 
ton fetched his refreshments and sat down by her 
side. 

“My nerves haven’t yet recovered from the shock 
they had,” he said. “We heard the crash, and some 
one screamed, ‘Oh, the Senorita!’ For one horrible 
instant I thought the rock had taken you. My heart 
has not recovered its normal action yet.” 

Isabel was ungrateful enough to laugh. 

“As long as the appetite is normal, the heart 
doesn’t greatly matter,” she said. “I am very glad 
not to have been taken by the rock, but I am incon- 
solable about Mr. Lloyd’s sketch. It was so good ! — 
and he lost it in saving me.” 

“It was a pity certainly; but since he couldn’t 
save both the sketch and yourself, you’ll allow us 
to think that he made a wise choice.” 

“My dear Miss Rivers!” — it was Armistead’s 
voice on the other side — “what a fearfully narrow 
escape you had ! I’ve just been examining the track 
of that boulder. It couldn’t have come more straight 
down the mountain to where you were sitting if it 
had been aimed at you.” 

“Matter does seem to be curiously endowed with 
malignity sometimes,” Isabel answered. “But for- 
tunately Mr. Lloyd was very quick.” 

“Lloyd ought to have known better than to keep 
you on that narrow shelf, overhung by rocks and 
overlooking a precipice, while he made sketches.” 

“But you see it was I who kept Mr. Lloyd there.” 


The Use and Pate oe a Sketch. 151 


Miss Rivers’ voice had a very perceptible accent of 
coolness. “He was making the sketch by my re- 
quest ; for how was I to know that unwary strangers 
were likely to be bombarded with rocks by your in- 
hospitable mountains?” she added, looking at a 
young Mexican. 

“Not strangers alone, senorita,” the latter has- 
tened to answer. “My horse the other day had an 
escape from a falling rock as narrow as yours. 
I left him tied near the mouth of a mine, and he 
only saved himself by jumping the full length of his 
reata.” 

“Evidently boulders are no respecters of persons,” 
Thornton commented. 

“But the horse didn’t lose a beautiful sketch,” 
Isabel added sadly. 

“Are you still lamenting that sketch?” Lloyd 
laughingly asked at her shoulder. “I will make an- 
other for you to-morrow, and the morning light 
on the quebrada will be better than the light we 
had on it this afternoon.” 

“Oh, but I would rather have it just as we had 
it this afternoon,” she said quickly, turning toward 
him. “I want those gathering shadows in the depths 
that seem to accent all the grandeur, and to give a 
touch of mysteriousness and awe to the scene. And 
I also want it as a souvenir of — the occasion. When- 
ever I look at it I want to remember that instant 
when we stood — ” 

“So close together and so close to death,” he could 


152 A Daughter of the; Sie;rra. , 

have added, as she paused ; but he only said : “I un- 
derstand. You shall have it just as it was to-day.” 

“Thank you!” she replied gratefully. And then, 
before she could add anything else, some one struck 
the strings of a guitar and began to sing. And what 
was it but “La Golondrina” ? — the same air but dif- 
ferent words from those which Victoria had sung at 
Guasimillas : 


“Aben-Hamed al partir de Granada 
Su corazon traspasado sintid, 

Alla en la vega, al perderla de vista 
Con debil voz su tormento expreso, 

‘Mansion de amor, celestial Paraiso, 

Naci en tu seno y mil dichas goce, 

Voy d partir d lejanas regiones, 

Do nunca mds, nunca mds volvere! 

‘Si vera en Abril, en la costa africana, 

La golondrina que de aqui se va 
A donde ira tan alegre y ufana, 

Tal vez su nido d mi casa d labrar. 

Oh! cuanto envidio al mirar que te alejas 
Ave feliz de dicha y de placer 
Mis ecos lleva d mi patria felice 
Que nunca mds, nunca mds volverdF ** 

Dusky shades were by this time gathering around 
them, so that they could not see one another’s faces 
very well as the voice rang out its pathetic refrain. 
Isabel had always thought it pathetic, but something 
in the time and place seemed to cause a sudden ten- 
sion of her heartstrings — 

Never more, never more return! 


The Use and Fate oe a Sketch. 153 

How the words echoed ! — and how much the fall- 
ing strain was like the sob of a hopeless sorrow! 
There are so many Granadas in life to which we 
shall never return; places where the sun shines, the 
flowers bloom, the fountains play, but where our 
steps will never enter again. She felt this as she 
was sure Lloyd was feeling it; for she heard him 
suddenly sigh in the silence which followed when 
the music ceased. Then he rose to his feet with a 
quick movement. What he was thinking was that 
surely he was mad to linger here — he of all men! 
For what exile is so hopeless as that which a man 
has wrought and ordered for himself? And having 
wrought, having ordered it, what folly to turn a 
vain gaze of longing toward the fair city of lost 
opportunity, where he had left forever youth and 
joy, love, hope and ambition! 

Silently as a shadow he turned and went away. 
But as he passed alone down the mountain path 
where twilight had fallen, while over the giant crests 
of the encompassing heights stars were gleaming 
here and there in the lovely sky, the sound of voices 
and laughter followed him. The merrymakers had 
left the mine and were also ^wending their way 
homeward. Through the still, clear air their gay 
words and jests reached him distinctly. And then 
some one began to sing, and now the whole party 
seemed to join ; for again it was the familiar strains 
of “La Golondrina.” The hills gave back the sounds. 
Nature herself seemed saying : 


‘Nunca mas, nunca mas volvere!” 


CHAPTER XIII. 


INTO TH^ SIERRA. 

\Y / HY the deuce you should be in such a hurry to 
* * get away, Lloyd I don’t understand.” 

It was Armistead who spoke, in no very amiable 
tone, as he sat on the side of his hard, narrow bed 
in the room the two men occupied together, and 
watched Lloyd’s preparations for departure. 

“If you don’t understand, it’s not because I 
haven’t told you why I’m going,” Lloyd replied, roll- 
ing up, with the deftness of long practice, a few nec- 
essary articles on the zerape which was to be carried 
behind his saddle. “I have nothing to do here ; and, 
not being fond of idleness, I am going out to 
Urbeleja to look after some prospects.” 

“There might be a good deal for you to do here, 
if you were not so confoundedly disobliging, and 
would do it.” 

“As for example — ?” 

“To assist me in getting possession of the Santa 
Cruz Mine.” 

“I’ve told you that I can not possibly assist you 
in that matter. I made that plain to you before we 
left San Francisco.” 


154 


Into the Sierra. 155 

“I didn’t believe you would really be such a — um 
— er — ” 

“Don’t hesitate to use the term you consider ap- 
plicable. I am not thin-skinned and can stand it.” 

“Well, you must acknowledge that no sensible 
man would act as you are doing.” 

“According to your definition of a sensible man, 
probably not.” 

“And I consider that you are treating me very 
badly besides.” 

“You haven’t the faintest right to think so, in 
view of our positive understanding; but if you do, 
the remedy is simple — we’ll shake hands now and 
go our different ways.” 

“And how about those prospects in the Sierra?” 

Lloyd shrugged his shoulders as he pulled the 
straps of his roll tighter. 

“The prospects will remain prospects,” he said; 
“at least I shall not expect you to sell them.” 

Armistead frowned as he looked at the other. 

“You are without exception the most pig-headed 
and impracticable man I have ever known,” he said. 
“You are ready to throw up a fortune, if half what 
you say of those prospects is true, rather than help 
me in a matter that does not concern you in the 
least.” 

“It concerns me to hold fast to my own standards 
of conduct. I don’t impose them on any one else, 
but they are essential to my self-respect.” 

“Oh, hang your self-respect.” Armistead rose, 


156 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


moved impatiently across the room, then turned 
sharply around. “When are you coming back to 
Topia?” he asked. 

“I don’t expect to return to Topia,” Lloyd 
answered. “I have no business here. From Urbe- 
leja I shall go to San Andres.” 

“Well, of all—” Words failed Armistead for a 
moment, as he stood with his hands in his pockets 
staring at the other.- “Haven’t you business with 
me? I am not going to give up those mines because 
you are a quixotic idiot.” 

“In that case you can meet me at San Andres, 
where I must go to see about the titles. I will let 
you know when I reach there, and you have nothing 
to keep you here.” 

“You are mistaken: I have a great deal to keep 
me here. To get possession of the Santa Cruz Mine 
is my first business in the country, and I find this is 
the best place from which to direct operations. 
Then, since you have failed me, I must depend on 
the Caridad people for help in certain matters. By 
the. by, are you going away without bidding Mr. 
and Miss Rivers farewell?” 

“Certainly not. I shall call to see them as I 
leave town. And now” — glancing quickly round — 
“I believe I am ready for the road. Good-bye, old 
man! I’m sorry I can’t wish you success in the 
Santa Cruz matter, but I hope you’ll come to no 
personal harm over it.” 

Armistead lifted his brows. 


Into the: Sierra. 


157 


“To what personal harm could I possibly come?” 
he asked. “Good-bye. Look out for yourself in that 
fearful Sierra !” 

“Oh, the Sierra and I are old friends!” Lloyd 
laughed, as he went out to where his horse waited 
for him. 

In the saddle and riding up the street, the stimu- 
lating freshness of the morning, with its diamond- 
like air and brilliant sunshine, seemed to brace both 
body and spirit like a tonic. And so it was a clear- 
eyed, self-contained man, with mouth and chin reso- 
lutely set, who presently rode with the ease of old 
familiarity into the patio of the Caridad house, and 
uncovered at sight of Miss Rivers, who was bask- 
ing in the sunshine on the corridor. 

“O, Mr. Lloyd!” she cried, looking up as his 
horse’s feet rang on the pavement. “How delighted 
I am to see you ! Oddly enough — and yet not oddly 
at all, — I was just thinking of you.” 

“Not anything ill, I hope?” he said, as he dis- 
mounted and went toward her; thinking, when he 
met the smile on her lips and in her eyes, what a 
face to match the morning sunshine hers was. 

“Not unless it were for slipping away so mys- 
teriously at the San Benito the other evening and 
not coming near us since,” she answered. “I was 
just wondering if I should have to send and compel 
you to come and be thanked for the beautiful sketch 
of the quebrada you have sent me.” 


158 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

“I am glad if it is what you wanted. It did not 
satisfy me at all.” 

“One always finds it difficult to be satisfied with 
one’s work, does one not? I can account in no other 
way for your not being satisfied with this. You 
must pardon me for saying that it seems to me 
much better done than any of your other sketches, 
of which Mr. Thornton has shown me a good 
many.” 

“Has Thornton kept those fragments? Well, if 
this is much better, it must have been with me as 
with old Picot, the French carpenter : you put a 
spirit into us to make us do our best for you.” 

She looked at him for a moment in silence before 
she said : 

“I should like to put a spirit into you to make 
you do your best for yourself.” 

“I am sure you would,” he answered, smiling at 
her — they had by this time sat down in two large 
chairs facing each other. “I have never seen any 
one who evidently possessed more strongly the de- 
sire of helping lame dogs over stiles. But, you see, 
sometimes the dog is ungrateful — ” 

“You are not that, I am sure, Mr. Lloyd.” 

“And sometimes he is incapable of profiting by 
the assistance of the kind hand held out to him. 
That is my case. The time has gone by when I 
could care to do anything for myself. It is long 
since I have even particularly cared about making 
money, which is understood to be the first duty of 


Into the: Sie:rra. 


159 


an American. But I am going to mend my habits in 
that particular, at least. I am now on my way into 
the Sierra to take up some prospects.” 

“You are on your way into the Sierra !” She 
glanced at his horse and then across the valley at 
the eastern heights, where a trail wound upward 
like a thread to the pass between the crowning cliffs. 
“I wish I were going with you.” 

“Needless to say that I wish so, too.” 

“That is more polite than true, I’m afraid. But I 
am determined to go some day. I shall make papa 
take me.” 

“You are going to see Doha Victoria some day, 
you know.” 

“I hope so; but” — she leaned suddenly and eager- 
ly forward — “are you going to see Doha Victoria 
now, Mr. L,loyd? Oh, you don’t know how much 
I have been thinking, wondering how you would 
contrive to warn her !” 

“This seems the only way,” he said. “Of course I 
am not going to see Doha Victoria. I shall simply 
call at the mine and warn Don Mariano to be on 
his guard against possible surprise.” 

“How good, how very good of you to under- 
take such an errand!” 

“Don’t give me more credit than I deserve. I am 
going to Urbeleja, as I told you, about some pros- 
pects; and to call at the Santa Cruz will not take 
me very much out of my way.” 

“I must believe you, I suppose; but I have my 


160 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


suspicions that the prospects come in very conven- 
iently just now. And if you see Doha Victoria — ” 

“May I tell her that she owes the warning to 
you?” 

“I would prefer that you did not. I could not 
give the warning without betraying confidence, you 
know. As it is, my conscience is not at all easy 
about the matter.” 

“It should be, then,” said Lloyd, stoutly. “You 
have told me nothing; in fact, I know nothing of 
Armistead’s plans. I only suspect what his course 
of action will be; and I shall merely, in a general 
way, offer some advice to Don Mariano, which he 
may or may not heed.” 

“Will he not think that you are taking a liberty, 
and perhaps resent it, if you put the matter that 
way ?” 

“Possibly; but that is strictly his affair.” 

“No, no: it is our affair also; for we are think- 
ing of Dona Victoria and her mother, and we don’t 
want them to lose their mine. Take my advice, Mr. 
Lloyd — perhaps I ought not to give it, but I will, — 
and make your warning emphatic. Let Don 
Mariano understand that it rests on knowledge.” 

“But Don Mariano would be quite justified in 
wondering why I should betray the confidence of 
my friend for the sake of strangers. That is how 
it would look to him, you see.” 

“Yes, I see. It’s rather a difficult matter, isn’t 
it?” 


Into the: Sie:rra. 


161 


“Very,” said Lloyd, a little dryly; “so difficult that 
the part of wisdom, if not altruism, would seem to 
be to stand apart and let the opposing forces fight 
it out alone.” 

“Oh, but I can’t, — I really can’t!” said Miss 
Rivers, distressedly. “When I think of that man 
in San Francisco and those poor women in the 
Sierra, I feel that I must take part in the fight, 
if I have to go and warn Dona Victoria myself.” 

“You couldn’t possibly do that; but it might, per- 
haps, help matters if you were to give me a cre- 
dential.” 

“In what form?” 

“Well, the form of a line or two to Dona Vic- 
toria, asking her to heed any warning I may give.” 

“Do you think she would heed that?” 

“I am inclined to think so. I know that you won 
her liking and trust during your journey up the 
quebrada.” 

“I am very glad to hear it. Tell me, then, exact- 
ly what you want me to say.” 

“Something like this, I think : that you feel deep 
interest and sympathy in her struggle for her rights, 
and that you hope she will give attention to any ad- 
vice I may offer her.” 

Miss Rivers rose eagerly. 

“Come into the sala and help me write it,” she 
said. “My Spanish is not faultless, and after ‘Muy 
apreciable Senorita’ I should be at a loss how to 
proceed.” 


162 A Daughter or the: Sierra. 

Lloyd followed her willingly enough into the 
room she had made so pretty and homelike. He 
was not sorry to carry away a picture of her as she 
sat at the desk beside the window and wrote her 
note, with the light falling on the softly piled masses 
of her golden-brown hair and the gracious curves of 
her fair cheek. The few lines which he dictated 
were, however, soon written; the pale gray sheet, 
with its stamped monogram and faint violet frag- 
rance, was put into an envelope, addressed to the 
Senorita Doha Victoria Calderon, and handed to 
him. And then it was time to go. He rose to his 
feet, slipping the note into an inner pocket; and as 
he did so his glance fell on his own sketch of the 
quebrada, which was placed above the desk. Isabel's 
glance followed his. 

“You see I have it there,” she said, — “not only 
to admire, but to remember how near I was to being 
carried down into those dark depths. That is why 
I wanted the shadows of evening — the impression 
of awe; and you have given it so well. I can never 
look at it without thinking of the moment you 
snatched me away and the boulder crashed past us, 
brushing my dress as it went.” 

He could not resist the temptation to say : 

“I am glad you have it, then; for I shall know 
that you remember me sometimes, if I should not 
have the pleasure of meeting you again.” 

She looked surprised. 


Into the Sierra. 


163 


“But surely you are not going to stay in the 
Sierra!” she exclaimed. “You will be back soon?” 

“Not very soon, I fear; and it can not be that 
Topia will keep you very long.” 

“You are as bad as papa. Topia will keep me 
for a long time yet; and, besides, I am going out 
into the Sierra. What is to prevent our meeting 
there?” 

“Nothing, except that the Sierra is very wide, 
and, like the sad-hearted Moor of ‘La Golondrina/ 
Voy & partir & lejanas regiones.” 

“Well, I am going into the ‘lejanas regiones y also,” 
she said, nodding determinedly. “Some day when 
you have climbed a high mountain, you will find 
that I have been coming up the other side. We 
shall meet on the top. You will say: ‘What! you 
here!’ And I will answer: ‘I told you I would 
come !’ ” 

“Hasten the day !” said he, smiling. “I shall look 
for you now on the top of every mountain I climb.” 

“I am sure we shall meet,” she said confidently; 
“but meanwhile I hope you will come back and tell 
me how you have fared with Dona Victoria. I trust 
she will heed your warning.” 

“So do I, for her own sake. And now” — he held 
out his hand — “good-bye ! I suppose I will find Mr. 
Rivers in the office?” 

“If he is not at the mine. Good-bye!” She laid 
her hand in his. “And — what is it they say here ? — 
V ay a Vd. con Dios!” 


164 


A Daughter of the: Sie:rra. 


“Go with God !” The beautiful parting words still 
rang in his ears after he had climbed the steep 
heights and paused an instant at the summit of the 
pass for a last look at Topia, lying in its green valley 
three thousand feet below; and then rode onward 
into the fair, wild, sylvan ways of the great Sierra. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


AN 0UD ACQUAINTANCE). 

N the day after Lloyd’s departure from Topia, 
Armistead, in fulfillment of his expressed in- 
tention to obtain the assistance he needed from “the 
Caridad people,” paid a visit to Mr. Rivers and 
formally asked this assistance. The Gerente of the 
Caridad leaned back in his chair and looked grave. 

“Well, you see, Armistead,” he said, “with every 
disposition to oblige you personally, it is rather a 
delicate matter for us to touch. We are living 
and doing business in this country, and we can not 
afford to antagonize the feeling of the people. Now, 
I suppose I don’t need to tell you that there’s a 
pretty strong feeling about this Santa Cruz mat- 
ter.” 

Armistead shrugged his shoulders. 

“That is to be counted on of course, where the 
claim of an alien and one against — er — women is 
concerned,” he replied. 

“Rather more than simply against ‘women’ in 
this case, you know, my dear fellow,” Mr. Rivers 
suggested. 

“I understand perfectly that it wouldn’t do for 
you to give open assistance, and I am not asking 

165 


166 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


anything of the kind,” Armistead went on; “but I 
am left in rather a difficult position by Lloyd’s de- 
fection. He has such scruples, or such fears for 
himself, in the matter that he has refused to give 
me the help I need in getting together a force of 
reliable men to take possession of the mine ; for I’m 
sure you’ll agree with me that that is the best and 
quickest way to end the matter.” 

Mr. Rivers picked up a ruler and tapped medi- 
tatively on the desk before which he sat — for this 
conversation took place in the office of the Cari- 
dad. 

“Perhaps so,” he said guardedly. “It is a point 
on which I hardly feel qualified to give an opinion. 
It’s a peculiar situation, — very peculiar; and there 
are — er — many things to take into consideration. 
I would like to oblige you in any way possible, 
Armistead; but I really don’t think it possible for 
us to take any part in the business.” 

“My dear sir,” replied Armistead earnestly, “I 
don’t ask you to take part in it further than to 
recommend some men for my purpose.” 

“But that’s impossible, don’t you see? — because 
the only men for whom I could speak are the men 
in our employ, and it would never do for any man 
connected with the Caridad to be concerned in this 
matter.” 

“In short,” said Armistead, stiffly, “it seems that 
I can not count on any friendly services from the 
Caridad. It’s not exactly what I looked for — to have 


An Old Acquaintance:. 


167 


the cold shoulder turned to me by the representa- 
tives of an American company.” 

“I think that we have proved that there is no 
cold shoulder turned to you personally,” Mr. Rivers 
answered ; “and if your business here were of an or- 
dinary character, the Caridad influence and help 
would be with you. But you must recognize that 
what you are engaged in is not an ordinary busi- 
ness, but is one in which so much feeling is ar- 
rayed against your claim, that I should seriously 
injure my company with the people if I lent you 
any assistance. You could not expect me to do that, 
even if my own sympathy were with you — that is, 
with Trafford — in the contest; and, frankly, it is 
not.” 

Armistead rose to his feet, more angry than he 
wished to express. 

“I see that I have nothing to expect in the way 
of help here,” he said; “so with apologies for hav- 
ing troubled you, I’ll bid you good-day.” 

Mr. Rivers rose also, and laid his hand on the 
other’s arm. 

“Be reasonable, Armistead!” he urged. “You are 
a man of the world, and you certainly must know 
that Trafford’s conduct in this matter is inexcusable. 
We all like you but we can’t possibly let our personal 
liking lead us into lending a hand to as dastardly 
a business as any man — again I am speaking of 
Trafford — ever engaged in. But don’t go off 
offended. Come into the house and see Isabel.” 


168 


A Daughter of the: Sie:rra. 


If Armistead had been capable just then of smil- 
ing, he might have smiled at the tone of the last 
words. “Come into the house and see Isabel,” Mr. 
Rivers said, much as he might have offered a sugar- 
plum to an angry child; and with an absolute con- 
fidence, too, in the efficacy of the sugar-plum. But 
Armistead’s feelings were too much ruffled to allow 
of his accepting the invitation. He curtly declined 
to pass into the patio, toward which Mr. Rivers’ 
gesture invited him; and, turning his back on its 
possible seductions,, walked out of the front door 
into the street — or, rather, into the road which be- 
came presently the main street of Topia. 

Before he reached the first houses of the village, 
however, he met Thornton, who, followed by a 
111020 with a bag of coin carried on his shoulders 
as if it were a bag of grain, was on his way to 
the office ; for this was pay-day at the Caridad, and 
on such days the merchants of Topia were frequent- 
ly called upon to give up all their silver in exchange 
for drafts on Culiacan and Durango. They were 
very willing to do so, since the drafts of the mine 
supplied an exchange which there was no bank to 
supply; and since the coin with which they parted 
quickly found its way back, through the hands of the 
miners, into their tillers. 

“Hello !” said Thornton, as he met the man swing- 
ing at such a rapid pace down the road. “The ex- 
press isn’t due for five minutes yet. Dreaming, 
weren’t you ?” he added with a laugh as Armistead 


An Old Acquaintance:. 


169 


paused. “Thought you were in the Land of Hurry 
again, I suppose, with a transaction of a million or 
so to be settled in five minutes over the telephone. 
See how much better we do business here !” And he 
waved his hand toward the mozo, who halted pa- 
tiently with the heavy bag of coin on his bent shoul- 
ders. 

“Send that fellow on! I want to speak to you,” 
said Armistead, impatiently. 

“Go on to the office, Dionisio, and tell the Gerente 
that I will be there in five minutes,” said Thornton 
in Spanish. “He’ll not be surprised now if he doesn’t 
see me for half an hour,” the speaker added as the 
mozo went on. “Such are the blessings of being in 
what scoffers call the Land of Manana. And now 
what can I do for you?” 

“A great deal, if you like,” Armistead answered. 
“In the first place, what will you take to sever your 
connection with the Caridad and enter into my em- 
ploy ?” 

Thornton stared for an instant. 

“You aren’t in earnest?” he said. 

“Do you suppose I ever jest on business?” Armi- 
stead demanded. “You’ve been so long in this 
wretched country that you’ve forgotten how men 
do business — at home. Of course I’m in earnest, 
and to prove it I’ll make you a definite offer. If 
you come to me, I’ll double whatever salary you are 
getting from the Caridad company, for as long a 
time as we remain in Mexico ; and I’ll take you to 


170 


A Daughter or the Sierra. 


California with me when I go, and find you a good 
position there. How does that strike you?’’ 

“Rather overwhelmingly,” Thornton replied. “In 
fact, the effect is so great on a system which, as you 
remark, is somewhat debilitated by the methods of 
business of this country, that I — I think I’ll sit 
down.” 

He sank as he spoke, with an air of one quite over- 
whelmed, on the spreading roots of a large tree by 
the side of the road ; and Armistead, frowning at this 
misplaced levity, followed his example. 

“Don’t be more of an idiot than you can help,” 
he said, with the frank incivility of an old class- 
mate.. “This isn’t a time for jesting. I want a man.” 

“I thought you had one. What has become of 
Lloyd?” 

“He has gone off into the Sierra.” 

“But isn’t he coming back?” 

“Not to help me in the business I am here special- 
ly to transact.” 

“And that is—?” 

‘■'To get hold of the Santa Cruz Mine. You must 
know — it appears that everybody knows that.” 

“Ah!” Thornton looked meditatively at the great 
heights towering before them. “And why will not 
Lloyd help you in the matter?” 

“For some private reason of his own — probably 
because he is afraid.” 

Thornton shook his head. 


An Old Acquaintance. 


171 


“Oh, no, ,, he said, “that won’t do! I know Lloyd. 
He isn’t afraid of anything.” 

“He certainly isn’t afraid of breaking his con- 
tract,” Armistead returned. “I found him, dead 
broke, in the streets of San Francisco, and brought 
him down here with me on the understanding that 
he was to give me the aid of his knowledge of the 
country, the people and the language whenever I 
needed it. Yet now, when I need it most, he goes 
off and leaves me in the lurch — for what reason I 
can’t pretend to say. Perhaps he wants to marry 
the Santa Cruz girl.” 

“That won’t do either. Lloyd isn’t a marrying 
man.” 

“I don’t care what kind of a man he is,” Armi- 
stead said irritably, “further than that he is not the 
kind of a man that suits me, or who can be relied 
on to keep his word. So I want somebody — and 
want him at once — who has the qualifications I re- 
quire. I believe that you have them, so I offer you 
a rare opportunity. Will you take it ?” 

“I am not sure of possessing the qualifications you 
are good enough to take for granted,” Thornton an- 
swered. “You had better tell me what you want 
me to do.” 

“The first business I shall want you to undertake 
will be to assist me in getting together a number of 
men sufficient to take possession of the Santa Cruz 
Mine.” 

“By force?” 


172 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

“By the same kind of force you would employ in 
ejecting a tenant from a house he refused to leave. 
Trafford’s title to the mine is good; but the people 
who are in possession of it now will neither resign 
possession nor accept any terms of compromise, so 
there is nothing to do but eject them. I hope to 
accomplish this without a conflict, if I can succeed in 
surprising the mine. But I must have a force of 
men I can rely on, and some one who understands 
managing Mexicans. You, I think, are the man for 
the purpose; and therefore I offer you inducements 
which are very well worth your while to consider.” 

“They are certainly very considerable induce- 
ments,” Thornton replied, rising to his feet; “and 
I am much flattered by your opinion of my qualifi- 
cations. But I’m obliged to decline your offer. I’ll 
stick to the Caridad, thank you.” 

Armistead, rising also, regarded him frowningly. 

“What is the meaning of this?” he asked. “I 
never thought that you were distinguished for in- 
difference to your own interest.” 

“Neither am I,” Thornton answered. “I’m as 
keen for my own interest as most men. But there 
are some things a man can touch and some he can’t. 
I mean no reflection on you, but I’ll be hanged if 
I touch this business of the Santa Cruz. Good- 
morning. They’ll be looking for me at the office.” 

As he walked rapidly up the road, Armistead 
gazed after him with a slightly sardonic expression. 


An Old Acquaintance;. 


173 


“Some things a man can touch and some he 
can’t !” he repeated. “It’s very plain, my good fel- 
low, where your scruples have been developed. Miss 
Rivers has got in her work pretty well. What a 
fool a man is to believe that a woman thinks any the 
better of him for accepting her opinions ! Take a high 
tone, let her understand that she doesn’t know what 
she is talking about, and go your own way — that’s 
the only course to adopt with a woman.” He turned 
and went on toward the town. “Evidently there’s no 
help to be had from anybody connected with the 
Caridad,” his thoughts continued; “so where the 
deuce am I to turn for the assistance I need ?” 

It was a difficult question to answer, and he was 
considering it as he walked down the long, narrow 
street of the town, past the open doors of the one- 
storied dwellings and shops, until he reached the 
flowery plaza. Here he sat down on a bench ; and, 
still absorbed in the consideration of his problem, 
did not observe any of the loungers — few at this 
hour of the day — who occupied the other benches 
in sight. 

But one person who lounged on a seat not far off 
observed him closely. This was a man, evidently 
not a Mexican and probably an American, of dissi- 
pated and shabby appearance, but about whom there 
hung the indefinable and almost ineradicable air of 
a gentleman. Presently he rose, walked deliberate- 
ly over to the bench where Armistead was seated, 
and sat down beside him. 


174 


A Daughter or the Sierra. 


“How do you do, Mr. Armistead?” he said in a 
refined and educated voice. “I didn’t know you were 
in Mexico.” 

Armistead started, turned around, and with a 
single glance took in the condition and probable 
needs of the man who addressed him. Figuratively, 
he buttoned his pockets, as he said coldly : 

“I don’t remember having met you.” 

“Probably not,” the other answered with a faint, 
bitter smile. “Times have changed with me since 
we met last. But you’ll probably remember me 
when I tell you that my name is Randolph, and that 
I was connected with the Silver Queen Mine when 
you visited it three years ago.” 

“Oh!” Armistead adjusted his eye-glasses and 
scrutinized the good-looking, dissipation-ravaged 
face before him. Of course he remembered the visit 
to the Silver Queen — a mine in Arizona which had 
been offered to Trafford, — and the manner in which 
he had been entertained by the staff of the mine, of 
whom Randolph was one. Armistead had thought 
that he knew something of the way in which man- 
agers of mines frequently spend the money of toil- 
ing capitalist-owners afar, but even his eyes had 
been opened at the Silver Queen. Such extrava- 
gance of expenditure and unchecked dissipation on 
the part of all concerned he had never seen else- 
where. The staff had left nothing undone to give 
him “a good time,” and the memory of it was not 
likely to be forgotten. He thought it probable 


An Old Acquaintance. 


175 


that he should now have to repay a little of that 
exuberant hospitality. 

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Randolph !” he said po- 
litely but not more warmly. “Of course I remem- 
ber you now; but you have — altered a good deal 
since I saw you then.” 

“A little, no doubt,” said Randolph, dryly. “Those 
were rare old times at the Silver Queen, but the bot- 
tom fell out of that when you reported against the 
mine (rather shabby of you, by the by, consider- 
ing all the champagne we poured out to give you 
a rosy view of it) ; and since then I’ve found it 
rather hard to find or keep a good position.” 

Armistead did not think this remarkable, but for- 
bore to say so. 

“You have been long in Mexico?” he asked. 

“I’ve been at one or two mines, but — didn’t stay. 
Yes” — as he caught Armistead’s significant glance, 
— “of course you can see what the trouble is. My 
habits are bad.” 

“That’s a pity,” said Armistead. “No man with 
bad habits can keep employment very long, you 
know.” 

“If I had ever doubted the fact, my experience 
lately would have convinced me of it, so I’ve sworn 
off — no, not in the usual way. I believe I’ve a little 
will-power left; and it’s life or death with me now 
to exert it. I have got as far down as a man can 
go and not be a beggar. I haven’t come to that yet, 
though I’ve seen ever since I sat down here that it’s 


176 A Daughter of thf Sierra. 

what you are afraid of. Don't be afraid. I’ve no 
intention of asking you for money; but I would 
like some work, if you have any to give.” 

A singular expression came over Armistead’s 
face. He did not reply immediately, but gazed at 
the other for a moment with eyes so keen and cold 
that they seemed searching him through and 
through. Then he said slowly: 

“It’s a little odd. I am just now in need of a 
man to do some work for me, and I have not known 
where to find him. You might do — if I could have 
any assurance that you would keep sober.” 

“I can give you no other assurance than my 
promise,” Randolph answered. “But, as I’ve told 
you, it’s a life and death fight with me now; and if I 
fail, the remedy’s in your own hands. You can dis- 
charge me.” 

“I should certainly do that without a moment’s 
hesitation,” said Armistead, coldly. “Meanwhile I’ll 
give you a trial.” He rose as he spoke. “Come to 
my room. We can settle matters there.” 


CHAPTER XV. 

AT THE) SANTA CRUZ. 


THE Santa Cruz Mine, over which such conflict- 
ing interests were struggling, and around which 
old wrongs, exasperations and bitterness were wak- 
ing to new life, lay deep in one of those mountain 
fastnesses where Nature seems to delight in hiding 
her richest treasures. The only practicable ap- 
proach to it was by a canon which opened out of the 
valley of Las Joyas, and, with a contrast common in 
the Sierra, was as stern and wild of aspect as the 
plain was gentle and pastoral. A narrow road or 
trail — it was no more than the last, — worn by the 
passing feet of innumerable mules and men, wound 
along the side of the canon, with precipitous heights 
rising above; while below there was a sheer drop 
of hundreds of feet to dark, green depths, into 
which no ray of sunlight ever pierced, and where 
an unseen stream filled the chasm with the tumult 
of pouring waters. Wild enough at its outset, the 
gorge grew wilder as it penetrated farther into 
the heart of the giant hills, until at length it termi- 
nated in a natural cul-de-sac, where a great moun- 
tain, like a couchant lion, closed the way, and where, 
high in the side of this height, lay the Santa Cruz 
Mine. 


177 


178 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

Six hundred feet above the bottom of the gorge, 
into which the stream, leaping in a white cataract 
down an arroyo, plunged with a thunderous roar, 
was the arched entrance of the main tunnel into 
the mine; and before this the patio for the sorting 
of ores, buttressed on its outer side by an enormous 
dump of waste rock. And here, crowning a mass 
of boulders, stood a tall cross, the first object to 
meet the gaze of any one advancing up the canon. 

“In hoc signo vinces!” Lloyd murmured to him- 
self, as he rounded a turn of the gorge and caught 
sight of the great symbol, so high uplifted and so 
impressively relieved against the mountain side. 
He felt himself suddenly thrilled, not only by its 
marvellous picturesqueness, towering at the head of 
this mountain defile, and by the poetry of the faith 
which placed it there, but also by a conviction that 
it stood as an omen of victory for those who held 
the mine beneath it. The words of Dona Beatriz 
recurred to his memory. “I swear by the holy cross 
that stands over the mine !” she had said. And what 
she swore was that neither the man who claimed it 
nor any one whom he sent should ever possess the 
Santa Cruz. At this moment Lloyd, too, could have 
sworn that they never would. For, as he walked his 
horse along the narrow way, with the roar of the 
torrent below filling his ears, the stern heights en- 
compassing him and the majestic cross dominating 
the wild grandeur of the scene, he saw how ad- 
mirably situated the mine was for defense, com- 


At thk Santa Cruz. 


179 


manding as it did the head of the canon, with no 
other way of approach than the trail which he was 
following, and which, winding along the side of 
the gorge, finally entered the patio on a level. Un- 
less surprised, the Santa Cruz could never be taken 
by force, if those who held it were minded to re- 
sist. And that they would be so minded he could not 
doubt, knowing as he did the indomitable temper of 
one at least of the women who were its possessors. 
It was impossible not to smile at the thought that 
Trafford, whose progress had been so triumphant 
for many years, and whose road to fortune had been 
marked by the ruin of whoever opposed him, might 
now at last have a taste of defeat at the hands of his 
own daughter. 

“But they should not allow a stranger to ride un- 
challenged into their patio !” he thought impatiently, 
as he entered, and looked over a scene of a kind 
very familiar to him — men bringing ore out of the 
mine; groups of boys seated on the ground rapidly 
breaking and sorting it into heaps, from which 
numbers of mules were being loaded, to carry all, 
save what was known as the export ore, down to the 
arrastras at the mouth of the canon, for reduction 
by the ancient process of Mexico. 

It was a busy and animated scene; and so ab- 
sorbed was each person in his particular occupation 
that it was several minutes before any one ap- 
proached the newcomer, who, drawing up his horse, 
quietly waited. Presently a young man, detaching 


180 


A Daughter or the Sierra. 


himself from a group of men and mules, came for- 
ward. It was not altogether a pleasant surprise that 
he proved to be Arturo Vallejo, who on his part was 
evidently astonished as unpleasantly as possible by 
the sight of Lloyd. 

“Buenos dias, senor!” he said coldly and with 
evident suspicion. “You have business here — in the 
Santa Cruz?” 

“Else I should not be here, senor,” Lloyd an- 
swered. “I wish to see your father, Don Mariano 
Vallejo.” 

“My father is just now in the mine, senor. But I 
am in charge of the patio. You can tell me your 
business.” 

“I would prefer to speak to Don Mariano,” said 
Lloyd. “With your permission, I will wait for him.” 

The words were civil enough, but it was, per- 
haps, the manner of the other which exasperated 
Arturo, At all events, his reply was distinctly rude : 

“It can not be permitted, senor, that you shall 
stay here. We do not allow strangers — who may 
be enemies or spies — in our patio.” 

“A very good rule,” returned Lloyd, coolly; “but 
it would be better if you took more precautions to 
enforce it. You should certainly not permit a 
stranger to ride, as I have done, unchallenged into 
your patio.” 

The young man flushed angrily. The admonition, 
so plainly justified, would not have been agreeable 


At ths Santa Cruz. 


181 


coming from any one. Coming from this source, 
it was intolerable. 

“I stand in no need of advice from you,” he said 
haughtily. “We are able to take care of ourselves. 
You would not have entered if the watchman had 
not been off guard just then. It is, however, im- 
possible that you can be allowed to remain.” 

“In that case,” said Lloyd, with the same exas- 
perating coolness, “I will trouble you to say to Don 
Mariano when he comes out of the mine that I will 
see him at Las Joyas.” 

This was something Arturo had not anticipated. 

“At Las Joyas !” he repeated violently. “It is im- 
possible — you can not venture to intrude there!” 

Lloyd smiled. 

“You may be in charge of the patio of the Santa 
Cruz, Don Arturo,” he said, “but I hardly imagine 
that you are in charge of Las Joyas. Kindly give 
my message to your father.” 

He was about to turn his horse, when the young 
Mexican laid a quick hand on the rein. 

“I may not be in charge of Las Joyas, sehor, ,, he 
cried, “but I feel it my duty to prevent such an in- 
trusion on the ladies who are there alone. If you 
must see my father, you can wait in the office 
yonder” — he waved his hand toward a small build- 
ing beside the mouth of the tunnel — “until he comes 
out of the mine.” 

“You are extremely kind,” said Lloyd, with sub- 
dued sarcasm; “but I think it will perhaps be bet- 
ter if I go — ” 


182 A Daughter or the: Sie;rra. 

“To Las Joyas,” he was about to add when the 
words were stopped on his lips by the appearance 
of a figure which suddenly rode into the patio. It 
was a feminine figure, rebozo-shrouded about the 
head and shoulders, but not so closely that it was 
possible to mistake the beautiful face and eyes of 
Victoria Calderon. As she entered, she halted, 
lightly and easily without assistance from her sad- 
dle to the ground, and called a boy from one of 
the ore heaps to take her mule. At the same mo- 
ment Lloyd also dismounted and advanced quickly 
toward her. 

“Dona Victoria,” he said, “I am happy to meet 
you !” 

She started as she turned toward him, extreme 
surprise in her face and manner, but, as he felt at 
once, no trace of suspicion. 

“Senor Lloyd!” she exclaimed. “It is very un- 
expected to meet you here.” 

“I am sure of it,” he answered. “I am here to 
see Don Mariano, but I am told that he is in the mine 
just now.” 

“But no doubt they have also told you that he 
never remains there very long,” she said. “So 
you can wait a little, or” — she looked at him with 
sudden keenness, — “if your business relates to the 
mine, you can transact it with me. It is as you like.” 

“It is as you like, rather,” he said. “My business 
certainly relates to the mine; but it was because I 
was unwilling to disturb your mother and yourself 


At the: Santa Cruz. 


183 


that, instead of going to Las Joyas, I came here to 
see Don Mariano.” 

“Whatever concerns the mine concerns my mother 
and myself first of all, senor,” she replied ; “and you 
need not have hesitated to disturb us. What is 
your business? Do you, perhaps, bring some mes- 
sage from the man who is trying to take the mine 
from us?” 

“No, senorita. I have no connection with Mr. 
Armistead in the matter of the Santa Cruz, and 
bring no message from him. I shall be glad to tell 
you what I have come to say to Don Mariano. But” 
— he glanced at the people around them — “can we 
not find a more quiet place in which to talk?” 

At this moment Arturo approached them. 

“I have told the senor that he can wait for my 
father in the office,” he said stiffly to Victoria. 

“It is not necessary that he should wait ; he can 
speak to me,” she rejoined, with an air of authority 
which somewhat amused Lloyd. “Give your horse 
to Jose,” she said to the latter, indicating the boy 
who had taken her mule; “and we will find a place 
to talk.” 

She turned as she spoke, not toward the office as 
he expected, but in the opposite direction, — toward 
the outer edge of the patio, which, being enlarged 
by the vast accumulation of waste rock from the 
mine, sharply overhung the mountain side. Here, on 
a pile of timbers awaiting use, she sat down. There 
was no thought of the surroundings in her mind, 


184 


A Daughter or the Sierra. 


but Lloyd could not but be struck by them : the great 
heights towering into the burning blue of the jewel- 
like sky, the thunder of leaping waters, the strong 
sunlight smiting the rocks and pines and wealth of 
verdure in the wild gorge below. It all made a 
frame of stupendous grandeur and picturesqueness 
for the busy scene around the mouth of the mine 
and for the figure of the girl, whose face looked up 
at him out of the blue folds of her rebozo with 
steady dark eyes. 

“Will you not sit down, senor?” she said. “This 
is a good place to speak, for no one can overhear 
you here.” 

“Thanks, senorita!” he answered. And as he 
seated himself beside her on the timbers, he drew 
from his pocket the pale gray note with its faint 
violet fragrance, which seemed to bring Isabel 
Rivers’ personality before him. “As I have said, I 
did not expect to have the pleasure of meeting you,” 
he went on ; “but, nevertheless, on the chance of do- 
ing so, I thought it best to bring this.” 

With a wondering expression she took the note; 
and the wonder had evidently deepened when, after 
reading it, she looked at him again. 

“This,” she said, “is from the senorita Americana 
— the daughter of the Gerente of the Caridad, with 
whom I travelled up the quebrada ?” 

“The same,” Lloyd answered. “Miss Rivers re- 
members you so well that she hoped you would also 
remember her.” 


At the Santa Cruz. 


185 


“I remember her very well, senor; but I do not 
understand why she should write to me and ask 
me to trust you, whom I have had no thought of 
distrusting.” 

“You are very good to say so, senor ita; but we 
— Miss Rivers and myself — could not be sure of 
that; for we remembered that you had only seen 
me when I was with the man whom you regard as 
your enemy — ” 

“He is our enemy,” she interposed quickly; “but 
you, even when you were with him, proved yourself 
our friend.” 

“I certainly felt as your friend,” Lloyd an- 
swered; “but I had so little opportunity to prove 
myself one that I should not have been surprised 
if you had distrusted me — perhaps as much as Don 
Arturo does,” he added, with a smiling glance in 
the direction of that highly indignant young man. 

“Arturo is a boy,” said Victoria, who was 
probably three or four years his junior. “It is un- 
necessary that you should think of him. I would 
have trusted you without this letter; so now you 
can tell me at once what it is you have come to 
say.” 

“Briefly, then, I have come to warn you that it is 
Mr. Armistead’s intention to surprise the mine and 
take possession of it by force.” 

“Ah! He thinks that he can!” A flash of fire 
leaped now into the dark eyes. “You have learned 
this from himself, senor ?” 


186 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

“No,” Lloyd replied; “for in that case I could 
not have told you. I have learned or divined it from 
an outside source, which left me free to warn you. 
But I do not think there is any doubt of his in- 
tention; and if he succeeds, you will never recover 
your mine. Your only hope, as matters stand, is in 
keeping possession of it. Surely you must know 
this.” 

“We do know it,” she said sternly; “and we are 
ready to fight any one who comes to take it.” 

“You will have no chance to fight if Armistead 
carries out his plan. Do you not understand? The 
mine will be surprised. Some night men will steal 
into your patio, overpower the watchman and take 
the mine. After that you can never retake it; for 
those who will then be in possession will not only 
use every precaution against surprise, but they will 
have the law on their side.” 

“You are mistaken. We would take it from them 
if we had to bring every man in the Sierra to do 
it!” Victoria cried passionately. “But there is no 
need to consider that; for they shall never obtain 
possession of it.” 

“Then,” Lloyd said gravely, “you must keep bet- 
ter guard. I, a stranger, rode unquestioned into your 
patio. Why might not a hundred men do the same?” 

She stared at him for a moment, and as she drew 
her dark brows together over her blazing eyes, he 
saw all the imperious force of her character writ- 
ten in her face. 


At the: Santa Cruz. 


187 


“It shall never happen again,'” she said. “If it 
does, everyone in charge shall go on the instant. 
Yonder is Don Mariano now. Wait for me a mo- 
ment, senor.” 

She rose and walked rapidly away to the mouth 
of the tunnel, where Don Mariano had indeed ap- 
peared and was standing, giving some orders. Lloyd 
watched her draw him aside and speak for a few 
minutes with low-toned vehemence, and evidently 
to his great surprise ; then both turned and came to- 
ward him. 

The bronzed, grave Mexican greeted Lloyd with 
a certain stiffness in his courtesy. It was plain that 
he thought the warning which had been given the 
impetuous young woman at his side should have 
been reserved for his ear. 

“Doha Victoria tells me that you have done us 
a great service, senor,” he said, after they had 
shaken hands. “Have you reason to be certain of 
what you have told her — that it is intended to take 
possession of the Santa Cruz by means of a sur- 
prise?” 

“I have very good reason to be certain of it, se- 
nior,” Lloyd answered. “But even if I had not such 
reason,” he could not forbear adding, “I should 
know that it would be the thing most likely to be 
attempted, and therefore to be guarded against.” 

“The Santa Cruz is well guarded, senor. We 
have many rifles in that office yonder.” 

“Rifles are only of use in the hands of men,” 


188 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

Lloyd replied a little dryly. “You will pardon me 
for saying that after your mine had been taken they 
would be of little service to you. I do not, however, 
wish to take the liberty of offering advice: I am 
simply here to give a friendly warning. As Doha 
Victoria has probably told you, I have reason to be- 
lieve that Mr. Armistead’s plan is to take posses- 
sion of the mine by a surprise, and so avoid the long- 
delay of legal action. I need not tell you that he 
relies upon the strength of Mr. Trafford’s title to 
hold the mine after he has obtained possession of it.” 

“He will never obtain possession of it,” answered 
Don Mariano, grimly; “especially since you have 
been kind enough to put us on our guard,” he added, 
with the air of one who acknowledges an obligation 
which is not altogether to his taste. “Perhaps we 
have been a little careless — we have gone on in our 
accustomed manner, forgetting the treacherous ways 
of the gringos — ” 

“All gringos are not treacherous,” Victoria in- 
terposed quickly. “Senor Lloyd has come here to 
warn us against his own countryman, to do us a 
service which we can not repay. But for him we 
might — I believe that we should — have lost the 
mine.” She turned to Lloyd, her eyes now all melt- 
ing and glowing. “How can we thank you, senor?” 

“I am sufficiently thanked, senorita, if the warn- 
ing I have given proves of service to you,” he an- 
swered. “Do not forget that you have some one 


At the: Santa Cruz. 


189 


else to thank besides me.” He glanced as he spoke 
at the note still in her hand. 

“Ah, yes: the senorita! Will you assure her of 
my gratitude ?” 

“I am not returning to Topia, so I shall not see 
Miss Rivers again. But I hope that you will see 
her yourself.” 

“How can that be, senor? Neither am I going 
to Topia.” 

“I think, if you will allow me to say so, that 
nothing would give Miss Rivers more pleasure than 
to visit Las Joyas.” 

Victoria looked surprised. 

“Do you think it possible that she would care 
to come into the Sierra?” she asked. 

“I am sure that she would be delighted to do so,” 
Lloyd answered confidently. 

“Then I will write and ask her to come. But you, 
senor, — you will go now to Las Joyas? My mother 
will wish to see and thank you.” 

Nothing, however, was further from his wishes 
or intentions than to go to Las Joyas for the thanks 
of Dona Beatriz. In fact, all that he now desired, 
having accomplished his errand, was to get away 
as speedily as possible. 

“Many thanks, senorita !” Lloyd answered, beck- 
oning the boy who held his horse to bring the animal 
up; “but it is not possible for me to have the 
pleasure of going to Las Joyas at this time. May I 


190 


A Daughter or the: Sie;rra. 


beg that you will present my respectful salutations 
to Doha Beatriz and assure her — ” 

But Victoria interrupted his compliments ruth- 
lessly. 

“You are going away — after what you have done 
for us — without entering our house !” she exclaimed. 
“That is impossible, senor, — I can not allow it.” 

He held out his hand, smiling. 

“I am going to San Andres, and have come out 
of my way to visit Santa Cruz ; so now I must get 
on quickly. Another time I will have the pleasure 
of visiting Las Joyas.” 

“When the senorita Americana comes?” 

“Hardly then, I fear; but later, perhaps. And 
now adios, senorita! Adios, senor! My best wishes 
for your success in holding the mine.” 

A few minutes later he was again on the moun- 
tain trail, with the great cross of the Santa Cruz 
behind him, and the memory of a pair of very re- 
proachful dark eyes accompanying him. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


AN ENCOUNTER ON THE TRAIE. 

A T that point in the winding gorge where the 
first and last view of the cross over the mine 
was to be obtained, Rloyd turned in his saddle for 
a final glance at the picturesque scene dominated 
by the great symbol; and then rode on, only to be 
surprised, if not startled, a minute later, by the 
sudden appearance of a man in the road before him. 

There would have been nothing surprising in this 
if the man, like himself, had been following the 
trail; but he sprang down the mountain side into 
the path; and this Era Diavolo mode of appearing 
is, in the Sierra, likely to startle all but those of the 
strongest nerves. Lloyd’s nerves were strong as 
nerves are made; but when the agile figure landed 
on the road, his hand quickly and instinctively went 
to the revolver which, like everyone else in the 
country, he carried attached to a belt buckled around 
his waist. He did not draw it, however; for the 
next moment he saw that the man was Arturo Vall- 
ejo, who had taken a short cut across the hill and 
so intercepted him. His hand left the pistol, but 
the lines of his face settled sternly as he drew up 
191 


192 


A Daughter oE the: Sierra. 


his horse; for the young man paused directly in 
the narrow way. 

“Have I forgotten anything, that you are good 
enough to follow me, Don Arturo ?” he asked. 
“There should be some important reason to excuse 
your appearing in this manner before a horseman 
on a dangerous trail.’ ’ 

“Yes, you have forgotten something, senor,” 
Arturo answered, with tone and manner offensive 
in the extreme. “You have forgotten to apologize 
to me.” 

“For what, may I ask?” Lloyd inquired, with the 
calmness which always angered the other more than 
rudeness could have done. 

“For your insults — your insolence!” Arturo re- 
plied, speaking with set teeth and flashing eyes. 
“You come — as a spy I believe — to the mine which 
you are helping your countryman to steal; and re- 
fuse to tell your business to any one but a woman, 
a girl whom it is easy to deceive; but I am a man, 
and I will not submit—” 

“I should call you a foolish boy,” interposed 
Lloyd, with cool contempt. “Be kind enough to get 
out of my way. I have no time to waste on you, 
and no desire to do you^any injury.” 

The tone, even more than the words, infuriated 
Arturo. He made a step forward and seized the 
bridle of Lloyd’s horse. 

“You will not go until you apologize to me!” he 
cried passionately ; “until you explain why you have 
dared to come to the Santa Cruz — ” 


An Encounter on the Trail. 193 

Forbearance had plainly ceased to be a virtue. The 
threatening voice, the hand from which the horse 
reared back, suddenly roused in Lloyd an anger 
which, when roused, was all the more fierce for his 
ordinary quietude. 

“Take your hand from my .rein,” he commanded, 
“or I will knock you down to teach you better man- 
ners !” 

It is unnecessary to record the reply. Spanish is 
a language as rich in terms of vituperation and in- 
sult as in everything else, and what followed was 
extremely simple. Lloyd leaned forward, his hand 
shot out, and Arturo went down. 

But he was on his. feet again in a moment — for 
to ride over him was impossible, — clinging to 
the bridle of the now almost uncontrollable horse, 
and, in a paroxysm of fury, trying to drag Lloyd 
out of the saddle. Under ordinary circumstances he 
might as well have tried to drag from its base a 
rock like that against which Fitz- James set his 
back ; but the narrow ledge was a fearfully perilous 
place for such a struggle, and Lloyd felt that in an- 
other instant he and his horse would go crashing 
down the mountain side together. To dismount was 
the only hope of saving himself and at the same 
time of ridding himself of this young wild-cat, for 
such he seemed. 

To dismount from a plunging animal on a shelf 
only a few feet wide was, however, extremely diffi- 
cult and dangerous, even if his assailant had not 


i94 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

to be reckoned with. It did not even occur to him to 
use his pistol against the latter ; for, as he had truly 
said, he had n6 desire to injure him seriously, but 
only to be rid of him as expeditiously as possible. 
So, taking his foot from the stirrup, he was in the 
act of leaping from the saddle, when a plunge of 
the horse and a blow from Arturo, coming together, 
sent him backward over the precipice — down — 
down. 

At the same moment the frightened horse, tearing 
his rein from the hand of the startled assailant, 
dashed off wildly along the trail, the loud rush of 
his flying hoof-beats mingling with the crashing 
sound with which the man fell through the under- 
growth that covered the steep hillside. As both 
sounds died away, an awful silence followed, — a 
silence in which Arturo stood aghast, a picture of 
consternation and terror. After a minute, which 
seemed to him an age of fearful listening, he ap- 
proached the edge of the abyss and peered over. A 
few broken boughs and bushes near the edge showed 
where Lloyd had first fallen, but of his farther prog- 
ress no sign was to be seen from above. The green 
verdure of the mountain covered the path his body 
had made as completely as the ocean covers all trace 
of the swimmer who has sunk beneath its waves. 
Somewhere down there in the sunless depths of the 
gorge — perhaps on the rocks, perhaps in the stream 
that filled the stillness with its voice — he lay, sense- 
less, of course ; dead, almost certainly. 


An Encounter on the Trait. 


195 


White and shaking, Arturo drew back. What, he 
asked himself, could he do? Surely this was a 
terrible and unlooked-for result to have followed 
so simple a thing as demanding an apology for 
an insult. But it was an accident, — purely an acci- 
dent. The man’s horse had thrown him, — might 
have thrown him if he, Arturo, had never appeared. 
Why, then, should he allow his connection with the 
accident to be known ? There could not be the least 
doubt that the man was dead. To entertain any 
doubt of this, to seek assistance and make a search 
for him, would be to confess his own knowledge and 
how it was obtained. That he felt to be out of the 
question. Every instinct of his shrinking soul 
prompted him to fly from the spot and to be silent. 
The man might in time be missed and his body 
found — or it might not. The last was more prob- 
able; for no one ever entered, it was hardly likely 
that any one ever would enter, the wild depths be- 
low. And for his share in the deed there were no 
witnesses. He looked guiltily around, sweeping the 
green, silent mountain sides with his glance, and 
turning it half-fearfully, half-defiantly, toward the 
brilliant sapphire sky, where he knew well one Wit- 
ness sat. Then, with a wild, overmastering 
impulse of flight, he turned and the next mo- 
ment was following in the track of the flying horse 
down the gorge. 

An hour later Victoria left the mine. She was 
alone as she had come; and, while her mule paced 


196 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

slowly but sure-footedly along the narrow trail, her 
thoughts were with the man who had so lately pre- 
ceded her on this road. She was oppressed by a 
sense of obligation toward him which had found 
no adequate expression ; for after Lloyd’s departure, 
inquiry into the precautions taken against surprise 
fully revealed the fact that his warning had indeed 
saved the mine from easy capture. And he, a 
stranger, a gringo, had come to give them this warn- 
ing, and then had gone away without any return 
for so great a service! This was what she was 
saying to herself with a passionate regret, which 
was not lessened by the recollection that Lloyd had 
put aside thanks and refused to accept even hos- 
pitality. It was characteristic of her ardent, self- 
willed nature that, despite this fact, she was consid- 
ering how she could reach and force him to allow 
them to discharge in some way the obligation under 
which he had placed them. “Obstacles : things to be 
overcome,” was a formula which so far in life had 
expressed her practice, if not her theory; and she 
had no intention of being daunted now in her 
determination to express the deep and growing sense 
of gratitude which burned within her. 

But, absorbed as she was in these thoughts, she 
was not so much pre-occupied with them, as to fail 
to observe certain significant signs when she reached 
the point on the road where Arturo had waylaid 
Lloyd. She drew up her mule sharply, and looked 
with surprise at the deep prints of iron-shod hoofs 


An Encounter on the Trait. 197 

where Lloyd s horse had str uggled, reared, and par- 
tially slipped backward over the edge of the preci- 
pice, recovering himself only at the cost of several 
inches of the path. Noting this, her quick eye also 
perceived the broken and crushed growth on the 
mountain side below. Clearly something or some- 
body had fallen there. Her glance swept the road 
as it lay before her; and, seeing there also the deep 
indentations of the horse’s hoofs as he started on 
his frantic run, she knew that he had not gone down 
into the gorge. What, then, had fallen? She 
sprang from her saddle and, advancing as close to 
the edge as safety would permit, passed her arm 
around a tree to preserve herself from falling, and, 
leaning over, gazed anxiously downward. 

Suddenly she uttered a cry. Her keen glance 
descried something which had entirely escaped 
Arturo’s shrinking observation. This was Lloyd’s 
hat, lodged in the branches of a shrub where he had 
first fallen. Instantly she knew that it was he — 
the man of whom she had been thinking with so deep 
a sense of the service he had rendered her — who 
lay in the dark, green depths far below. Eor a mo- 
ment horror unnerved her, and she clung to the 
tree, shuddering and sick. She did not ask herself 
how such a thing could have occurred, what could 
have startled the horse, or how so good a horseman 
could have been unseated. Those questions would 
present themselves later; just now she only thought 
of the terrible fact that Lloyd had plainly gone 


198 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


down where it did not seem possible that any man 
could fall and live. 

She made the sign of the cross and her pale 
lips quivered in prayer for a moment. Then, brac- 
ing herself with a strong effort as she drew back 
from the verge of the abyss, she asked herself what 
was the first thing to do — or, rather, how best to 
set about that first thing, which was to reach and 
.recover, whether dead or alive, the man who lay 
below. Seizing the rein of her mule, she was about 
to spring into the saddle again, when around the 
shoulder of the height which hid the mine from view 
came the train of animals laden with ore for the 
hacienda de henehcio at the mouth of the gorge. She 
threw up her hand, and the gesture, together with a 
quick word of command, brought the train to a halt; 
the string of mules stood still, while the men in 
charge of them hastened forward to her. 

“See!” she said, pointing to the hoof-prints at 
the edge of the road, the broken boughs and hat be- 
low. “The senor who came to the mine a little while 
ago has fallen there. We must get him. Run back 
to the mine — you, Salvador — and tell Don Mariano 
to come quickly, to bring ropes and his best men.” 

“Si, senorita,” answered Salvador, and was gone 
like a flash. 

The other men meanwhile scrutinized eagerly the 
signs pointed out to them and agreed as to their sig- 
nificance. 


An Encounter on the Trait. 199 

“Yes, yes, it is true,” they said : “a man has cer- 
tainly fallen there, — pobrecito!” 

And then one of them drew attention to another 
telltale sign in the road — the print of boot-heels 
ground deeply into the soil, which, being a rich, 
black loam, never became very hard. 

“Mire!” he cried. “The senor dismounted, he 
struggled with his horse, and in the struggle was 
thrown down the hillside, — it is plain !” 

“Yes, it is plain,” they agreed again. 

But as Victoria looked at the marks indicated, a 
sudden fear clutched her heart. What if those were 
not Lloyd’s footprints ? What if he had been way- 
laid and assaulted, killed perhaps, almost at the gate 
of the Santa Cruz? And if this were so, who had 
assaulted him? Certainly no man of the lower 
class ; for all these wore the ordinary sandals of the 
country, which have no heels, being simply flat 
pieces of leather, cut out roughly to suit the foot and 
tied on with leather strings. All the men around 
her now wore such sandals, all the miners wore 
them, and all the workmen at the hacienda de 
beneficio. If, therefore, the footprints were not 
Lloyd’s, they were those of some other man who 
wore boots; and at the Santa Cruz only three men 
wore these — Don Mariano, the foreman of the mine, 
and Arturo. She tried to recollect if Arturo had 
been at the mine when she left it. She could not re- 
call having seen him ; but if he were there, he would 
certainly come now with the party of rescue. Surely, 


200 A Daughter of thf Sierra. 

surely they were slow, this party of rescue! She 
wrung her hands together in her impatience. 

“Run, Silvio, — run!” she said to another of the 
men. “Tell them to make haste !” 

“They are coming now, senorita!” called out a 
man who was watching at the turn of the road. 

A moment later they appeared — a number of men 
bearing coils of rope, and followed by Don Mariano, 
but not by Arturo. So much she saw at once, then 
dismissed him from her mind and gave all her atten- 
tion to the work to be done. Don Mariano, who had 
been exceedingly incredulous when he received the 
message delivered by the panting Salvador, was 
quickly converted to her opinion when he saw the 
broken boughs and Lloyd’s hat on the mountain 
side. 

“I fear there is no doubt he is down there,” said 
Don Mariano; “and if so, he is certainly dead.” 

“Dead or alive, we must find him !” cried Victoria. 
“Quick! — who will go down?” 

Half a dozen volunteered. Don Mariano selected 
three men — lean, muscular, lithe as greyhounds, 
noted even among their comrades for the great 
strength which distinguishes the native Mexican. 
These, taking ropes with them, the ends of which 
were held by those above, let themselves over the 
edge of the precipice and went down its almost 
perpendicular side with the mountaineering skill of 
true sons of the Sierra. Following Lloyd’s track, 
they were soon lost to sight in the dense foliage ; but 


An Encounter on th£ Trail. 201 

their path could be traced by the sounds with which 
they broke through the undergrowth as they went 
downward. 

The group above listened and waited in almost 
complete silence. Now and again a man spoke in 
a low tone to his neighbor, setting forth how he 
would have proceeded; or some one uttered a pious 
ejaculation as the sounds coming up from below 
made everyone start with fear lest one of the res- 
cuers had lost his footing and fallen to the rocks and 
torrent; for on entering into the thick growth they 
had discarded the ropes, which lay slackly on the hill- 
side. How long this suspense lasted no one knew; 
but presently a prolonged shout far below brought 
to every lip the cry, “They have found him !” 

Then the question, how had they found him 
— dead or alive? It was a question impossible to 
answer, however, until that slow, laborious ascent, 
hidden from sight but audible to the ear, which now 
began, should be over. Don Mariano alone uttered 
a word of hope. 

“They found him not more than halfway down 
the mountain,” he said. “He must have been stopped 
by some tree strong enough to support his body; so 
there is a chance — barely a chance — that he may be 
alive.” 

It seemed a chance hardly worth hoping for; but 
when the men, after their toilsome climb in the 
gloomy depths of verdure, came once more into 
sight, their first shout to those above them was: 

“He lives!” 


CHAPTER XVII. 


ARTURO FACES AN ACCUSER. 

p VERYONE agreed that it was hardly less than 
a miracle. For when Lloyd’s insensible form had 
been brought again to the road from which he had 
fallen — drawn by ropes from above and supported 
by his rescuers below, — it was found that he was 
not only living, but apparently without serious in- 
jury. At least there were no bones broken; al- 
though how serious the injury to the brain might 
be it was, of course, impossible to tell. Evidently 
he had been immediately deprived of consciousness 
by falling on his head; and his body had then 
crashed downward through the dense growth until 
stopped by the heavy, outspread branches of a great 
pine, in which it was found lodged, half-way down 
the mountain side. 

“I do not think that his skull is fractured,” said 
Don Mariano, after feeling all over the head. “It is 
marvellous that a man could fall so far and break no 
bones, unless — ” He paused and put his hand to the 
back of the neck, knowing himself unable to detect 
injury there, but knowing, also how fatal such injury 
would be. “It is possible that he is only suffering 
from a shock to the brain,” he added, looking at 
202 


Arturo Faces an Accuser. 20 3 

Victoria, who knelt on the other side of the pros- 
trate figure. “He may recover consciousness after 
a time, perhaps. We will take him to the mine — ” 

“No,” interrupted Victoria quickly. “He must 
be taken to Las Joyas.” 

“To Las Joyas! That is too far,” Don Mariano 
objected. 

“Far or near is the same to him,” she answered ; 
“and it is better he should be taken there at once. 
Do you think” — she flashed an indignant glance at 
her elderly relative — “that I will allow a man who 
has just done us so great a service to lie without 
care or attention at the mine ?” 

“Then we can take him down to the hacienda de 
benehcio” said Don Mariano. “There are good 
quarters there.” 

“He shall be taken to Las Joyas — nowhere else,” 
she said, rising from the ground as she spoke. “Let 
the men make a litter on which to carry him.” 

Don Mariano rose also, with an air of strong dis- 
approval; but he knew his impetuous young kins- 
woman too well to utter further remonstrance. 

“Come !” he said to the men grouped around ; and 
walked away toward the mine, followed by them. 

Left alone, Victoria knelt again by the unconscious 
man and gazed with passionate anxiety into his 
white, still face. Through the thick foliage of the 
trees overshadowing the narrow way, some rays of 
sunshine flickered down on them — on the out- 
stretched, motionless form of the man, on the pale, 


204 


A Daughter of the Sierra. 


tragic face of the girl — and seemed to mock, as sun- 
shine in its gladness always seems to do, the sug- 
gestions of tragedy in the scene. Steadfast and calm 
— with that unchanging calmness of the hills, which 
is a better type of eternity than the restless ocean, — 
the great forest-clad heights around looked down, 
the stainless turquoise sky spread its dazzling ex- 
panse above, and only the unceasing voice of the 
stream, fretting over the rocks far below, filled 
rather than broke the solemn silence. 

How long the interval of waiting lasted, Victoria 
did not know. During these moments something new 
and strange, a feeling such as she had never known 
before, was born within her. What there was in the 
face on which she gazed, beside its piteous death- 
liness of aspect — what lines of pain, now clearly to 
be traced, — to produce the passion of pity which 
merged into a flood of tenderness, she did not ask. 
Who does ask when that powerful influence which 
we call the heart is suddenly, deeply, strongly 
touched ? It is an almost terrible truth that over the 
rise of these tides of feeling from their unknown 
depths, we have no control; although it rests with 
us afterward to resist or throw open all our gates 
‘of being to them. But the time for such decision had 
not yet come to the girl, in whom swiftly and irresis- 
tibly a flood of emotion rose, as she looked at the 
man who had, perhaps, lost his life as a result of 
bringing to the Santa Cruz the warning which had 
saved it. 


Arturo Faces an Accuser. 


205 


And beside pity, pain and tenderness, indigna- 
tion possessed her. For more and more she was 
convinced that this which had happened was no re- 
sult of accident. And if it were not, if Lloyd had 
been waylaid and assailed, who could have been his 
assailant save Arturo? She recalled the bitterness 
with which he had spoken of Lloyd on his return 
from Topia. “I met that gringo called Lloyd in 
the plaza,” he said, “and he tried to make me betray 
my business to him. Then, when I told him that 
Mexicans were not such fools as he supposed, he 
insulted me.” And again, only an hour or two 
ago in the patio of the Santa Cruz, had not Lloyd 
himself called her attention to young Vallejo’s 
angry face? There was no doubt whatever that 
Arturo, to whom no one took the trouble to ex- 
plain matters, had deeply resented the visit of the 
obnoxious gringo to the mine; and, knowing him 
as she did, Victoria had very nearly an exact idea 
of what had happened later — of the passion which 
made him follow Lloyd — of the altercation — strug- 
gle — this! She had no belief that he had deliberate- 
ly intended to injure, much less to kill, a man who 
had never harmed him. But the result was the 
same as if intention had directed it; and her own 
anger toward the agent was also as great as if he 
had been aware of the black ingratitude of his deed. 

It was such thoughts as these which occupied her 
mind and gave its tragic intensity to her face as she 
knelt on the forest path, her lips murmuring prayers, 


206 


A Daughter or thr SiRrra. 


her hand now and again laid gently on the brow of 
the insensible man. Would those eyes, which but 
a little while before had looked so kindly and hon- 
estly into her own, ever unclose again ? Or had fatal 
injury indeed been done to the brain, and would 
this unconsciousness only pass into the deeper un- 
consciousness of death? There was no one who 
could answer. Doctors are not to be had in the 
Sierra. Those who fall ill or are injured there 
must trust to Nature, greatest of physicians; aided, 
or perhaps retarded, only by a few simple remedies 
employed by the people with a large faith and a still 
larger ignorance. Suddenly she rose again to her 
feet, threw back her head and listened. There were 
sounds of voices, tread of approaching feet. The 
next moment the men from the mine, accompanied 
by Don Mariano, appeared around the curve of the 
trail, bearing an improvised litter made of blankets 
fastened to two long poles. Into this Lloyd was 
carefully laid; and the ends of the poles were lifted 
to the shoulders of four men, who, with four more 
in attendance to relieve them when necessary, started 
down the gorge. Don Mariano then assisted Vic- 
toria to her saddle; and, looking around, beckoned 
for his own mule (which a boy had brought), with 
the evident intention of accompanying her. She 
caught her breath sharply. Here was a means of 
learning, without direct inquiry, where Arturo was. 

“Is it necessary for you to come?” she asked. 
“Would it not be better to — send Arturo ?” 


Arturo Faces an Accuser. 


207 


“He is not at the mine,” answered Don Mariano, 
flinging himself as lightly into the saddle as if his 
years had been two-score less. “I called for him but 
he could not be found. He must have gone to the 
hacienda de bcnehcio; so I will ride with you as far 
as that, and then send him on, if you are still de- 
termined to take the Senor Lloyd to Las Joy as.” 

“Nothing would induce me to allow him to be 
taken anywhere else,” she answered with decision. 

Don Mariano either possessed or had learned the 
wisdom of abstaining from useless words. He made 
no reply, and they rode silently, in single file — as 
the narrowness of the way rendered necessary, — in 
the rear of the men carrying Lloyd. 

Where the canon opened into the wide valley of 
Las Joyas stood the hacienda de beneficio — an im- 
mense enclosure like a fort, its walls twenty or 
thirty feet high, and each corner bearing a tower 
loopholed for defence. The memory and tradition 
of lawless times still abide in Mexico ; and a stranger 
in the land would think it sown with fortresses, like 
the strongholds of mediaeval barons, if he did not 
know that these erections are peaceful factories and 
mills. This of the Santa Cruz was no exception to 
the rule. Only artillery could have gained an en- 
trance into it if the gates were once closed, so strong 
were the walls within which were the arrastras 
sheds and buildings for the reduction of the ore. 
At the end of the canon the road divided, one trail 
going to the casa grande of Las Joyas, a mile or 


208 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

two farther down the valley ; and the other leading 
directly to the gates of the hacienda de beneficio. 
Don Mariano turned into the last. 

“Ride on,” he said to Victoria. “I will send 
Arturo immediately, and he will soon overtake you.” 

Victoria rode on, but she said to herself that she 
had little idea that Arturo would overtake her. And 
she was right : he did not. 

The surprise of Doha Beatriz when the procession 
reached the casa grande may perhaps be imagined. 
But it said much for the genuineness of that virtue 
of hospitality, which in the Sierra does not merely 
mean receiving friends or repaying social obliga- 
tions, but literally fulfilling the divine saying, “I 
was a stranger and ye took Me in,” that she was 
ready without question or demur to receive and care 
for this stranger, whom she had only known as the 
companion of one who came to do her an injury. 
It was not until he had been brought in, laid down 
on the best bed the house afforded, and given every 
attention within the power or knowledge of the 
household, that she heard from her daughter the 
story of their obligation to him. 

Then, indeed, had there been anything further in 
the power of Das Joyas to do, it would have been 
done; but there was nothing. The few and simple 
remedies employed usually in cases of illness or acci- 
dent were plainly useless here. There is, however, 
one supreme remedy which these people of childlike 


Arturo Faces an Accuser. 209 

faith never fail to employ, and to this Dona Beatriz 
had prompt recourse. 

“If we can do nothing else,” she said, “we can 
pray for him.” So, drawing her draperies about 
her, and followed by all the household except Vic- 
toria, who would not leave the bedside, she led 
the way to the chapel. Here, having lighted some 
candles before the sweet face of Our Dady of 
Guadalupe, the group, kneeling on the pavement, 
began to recite the Rosary. 

The sound of their voices came, in a rising and 
falling murmur of supplication, across the patio to 
the room where Victoria knelt also by the injured 
man, her clasped hands resting on the side of the 
bed, her eyes fastened on his face, her mind striv- 
ing to follow the prayers. Her mother’s voice, 
which was leading the devotion, she hardly heard; 
but the full-toned response of the others reached her 
distinctly : “Santa Maria, Madre de Dios, mega por 
nosotros pecadores ahora y en la kora de nuestra 
muerte!” The familiar words came like a constant- 
ly recurring strain of music to her ear, as her lips 
joined in murmuring their syllables. “La hora de 
nuestra muerte.” Was that hour of death near at 
hand for this man, whose face almost seemed to her 
fancy to grow more deathlike as she gazed at it ? She 
put out her hand fearfully to see if the fatal chill 
was upon it, when suddenly a shadow darkened the 
open door, and, glancing up with a start, she saw 
Arturo standing in it. 


210 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


She sprang to her feet, her dark brows drawn, 
her dark eyes burning with sudden fire. 

“You !” she said in a clear, vibrating tone. “Have 
you come to look at your work?” 

Arturo, whose nerves were already sadly shaken, 
was too confounded to answer for a moment. It 
was the last thing he had expected — to be met by 
such words as these. His father’s complete unsus- 
piciousness when, finding him at the hacienda de 
hehehcio , he had bidden him ride fast and overtake 
Victoria and the men carrying Lloyd, made him sure 
that no one would suspect him. He had therefore, 
with much inward reluctance but prompt outward 
obedience, mounted and followed the procession, — 
being careful, however, not to overtake it. Nothing 
was further from his wish than to see the injured 
man, although at the same time he had an intense de- 
sire to know his exact condition. When he reached 
the house, he had waited outside until the sound of 
the prayers in the chapel told him how the house- 
hold was engaged; then, supposing that he would 
find only some servant left with Lloyd, he went to 
the chamber — to be confronted with avenging fate 
in the person of Victoria. 

“My work!” he at length stammered, while he 
shrank under her gaze. “I — I do not know what 
you mean. I have heard that the Senor Lloyd has 
been hurt by falling into the Santa Cruz canon, and 
I have come to see how he is — that is all.” 

“Come, then, and see!” said the girl, pointing to 


Arturo Faces an Accuser. 211 

the figure before them. “Come and look! He is 
not yet dead, but he will be dead soon, no doubt, 
and you can feel yourself a murderer.” 

“Victoria!” — it was hardly more than a gasp, for 
surely this was as terrible as it was unexpected. 
“What right have you to say such things ! — to charge 
me — ” 

“With this!” she said, in the same clear, vibrant 
tone, as he paused and her hand still relentlessly 
pointed her words. “I charge you with it, because 
I know, as well as God knows, Arturo Vallejo, that 
you did it.” 

“I did not !” In his effort to be emphatic Arturo’s 
voice rose almost into a scream, the harshness of 
which drowned the murmur of the voices in the 
chapel. As he paused they floated in again. 

“Ruega por nosotros pecadores — ” 

“You are lying!” said Victoria, with the assured 
severity of a judge rather than of an accuser. “It 
was you, and no one else, who attacked Senor Floyd 
and threw him down the mountain. And you did 
this on the land of the Santa Cruz, almost within 
sight of the mine which he has saved for us by the 
warning he came to give! Oh, I tell you” — and sev- 
erity rose into passion — “if he dies — -and I believe 
that he will die, — I myself will declare what you 
have done, and will see that you are punished !” 

“Amen, Jesus!” came the voices from the chapel, 
as Arturo, now white and thoroughly shaken, strode 
forward into the room. 


212 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

“Victoria,” he said, “you are wrong, — quite 
wrong. I will swear to you — yes, on the crucifix — 
that I did not throw him down the mountain. I fol- 
lowed him because he had insulted me; and we 
were talking — quarrelling, if you like, — oh, I will 
admit that ! — and he attempted to dismount and his 
horse threw him into the canon. Then I thought he 
was killed, and I — ran away.” 

“Ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte!” the 
chorus floated in as Victoria regarded the speaker 
with flashing, scornful eyes. 

“I know you ran away,” she said. “You are a 
coward as well as — worse. By your own admission 
you did a more cowardly and cruel thing than if you 
had killed him outright. You left him, not knowing 
whether he were dead or alive, not caring how ter- 
ribly he were injured; you left him to die alone on 
the rocks of the canon — this man who had served us, 
— while you ran away! I am ashamed of you, — 
ashamed that you belong to me, however remotely. 
You are not fit to be here in his presence. Leave the 
room !” 

“Santa Maria , Madre de Dios , mega por noso - 
tros — ” The supplication came strangely into the 
momentary pause that followed the words with 
which the air still seemed vibrating. Although he 
was not aware of hearing or heeding it, perhaps this 
supplication suggested to Arturo his next action; 
for he suddenly fell on his knees by the side of the 
bed, and stretching out his hand, laid it on Lloyd’s. 


Arturo Faces an Accuser. 213 

“See, Victoria!” he cried. “I lay my hand on 
his and I call the Holy Mother of God as my wit- 
ness, while I swear that I never meant to injure him, 
and that I never doubted he was dead when I left 
him.” 

The intense passion which filled his voice was of 
a kind that could not be feigned. It carried con- 
viction to Victoria, and it did more: it touched some 
chord in Lloyd’s mind, which was slowly strug- 
gling back to consciousness. He opened his eyes 
and looked at Arturo. “Don’t be frightened!” he 
murmured, recognizing instinctively the agony on 
the pale face. “It was an ugly fall, but — you see — I 
am not dead !” 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


MISS RIVERS OBTAINS A PROMISE. 

IVJ OTHING more was heard of Armistead by the 
A ^ Caridad people for several days after his inter- 
view with Mr. Rivers. It was known that he had 
left Topia, but for what purpose or what destina- 
tion was not known; although it soon transpired 
that he had found some one to fill the place which 
had been vacated by Lloyd and declined by Thorn- 
ton. 

“Dissipated fellow, named Randolph,” the latter 
said in answer to a question of his chief. “Former- 
ly with the Silver Queen in Arizona, then drifted 
down to Sonora ; been with one or two mines there, 
but didn’t stay long. I met him in the plaza one 
evening and he asked me if there was a chance for 
him with the Caridad. I couldn’t give him much en- 
couragement — ” 

“I should think not,” said Mr. Rivers, dryly. “I 
never take a man of that kind into my employ.” 

“I felt rather sorry for the poor devil, though,” 
Thornton went on. “I’m glad Armistead has given 
him a thance. It’s a pretty good proof, however, 
of Armistead’s desperation,” he added with a laugh ; 
“for benevolence isn’t his strong point. I should be 
214 


Miss Rivers Obtains a Promise:. 215 

sorry to go to him for a helping hand if I were 
down on my luck.” 

“This man may serve his purpose,” said Mr. 
Rivers ; “although he has the disadvantage of being 
a stranger and not knowing the people here.” 

“Great disadvantage, too, in a place like Topia, 
with a floating population of miners, some of whom 
are a pretty bad lot,” said Thornton. 

“Armistead is very bitter about Lloyd,” re- 
marked Mackenzie, who was sitting by, — for this 
conversation took place in the patio one evening, 
when the men with their cigars were grouped 
around Miss Rivers in her special corner under the 
Moorish lantern. “Says he did him a great favor 
by bringing him back here, and now he — that’s 
Lloyd — has deserted him — that’s Armistead — be- 
cause he’s afraid to have anything to do with the 
Santa Cruz business.” 

“He should reserve that story strictly for people 
who don’t know Lloyd,” said Thornton. “I told 
him so the other day when he offered me the place 
Randolph now fills.” 

The speaker was modestly conscious of the inter- 
est with which three pairs of eyes were turned upon 
him. 

“So he offered the position to you!” said Mr. 
Rivers. “I might have guessed he would. I’m a lit- 
tle surprised you didn’t accept it. To serve Traf- 
ford’s interest would be to open many lucrative 
chances for yourself.” 


216 A Daughter of the; Sierra. 

“Oh, yes! I know that,” Thornton answered; 
“but — ” (he looked at a fair face smiling approv- 
ingly on him) “I suppose scruples are catching. At 
least I couldn’t make up my mind to serve Trafford’s 
interest in this particular case.” 

“Scruples are very much in the way of a man 
who wants to get on in life,” Mr. Rivers remarked; 
“but I am glad you haven’t discarded yours, and 
also that the Caridad isn’t to lose your services.” 

“Thank you, sir!” Thornton replied, flushing a 
little; for the Gerente was usually more caustic than 
complimentary to his subordinates. 

Miss Rivers was yet more complimentary when he 
found himself alone with her a little later. 

“You do yourself injustice,” she said, “by talk- 
ing of scruples being catching. I grant that Mr. 
Lloyd’s example was inspiring, but I am sure that 
even without it you would have refused to help in 
this shameful business of the Santa Cruz.” 

Thornton smiled as he looked at her. 

“I don’t remember saying anything about Lloyd,” 
he answered. “I certainly was not thinking of him 
at all. The scruples I mentioned were suggested by 
— another person.” 

“Oh !” she laughed. “The other person is delight- 
ed to have exercised an influence. But, again, I think 
you do yourself injustice. I’m sure you would not 
have needed any suggestion at all in such a plain 
case.” 


Miss Rivers Obtains a Promise:. 217 


“It's very good of you to be sure, but I am not,” 
said Thornton, candidly. “Pm afraid I should have 
looked upon it simply as a matter of business if I 
had not had the benefit of your views.” 

“I am glad they were so illuminating; but you 
must perceive they did not have the same effect 
upon Mr. Armistead, which proves that your disposi- 
tion is very different from his, and so you could not 
have done what he is doing.” 

“My disposition is certainly different from his,” 
Thornton agreed; “though whether or not the rest 
follows — but I must not quarrel with you for think- 
ing better of me than I deserve. Only,” he added, 
his voice changing a little, “it is quite certain that 
whatever I am in this matter you have made me — I 
mean that you have given me a standard by which 
to try things, and — and I’ve merely followed it, 
that’s all.” 

Isabel Rivers leaned forward and laid her hand 
for an instant, in a touch light as a snowflake, on 
his own. 

“Thank you!” she said sweetly and frankly. 
“That is a very kind thing to say, even if you are 
giving me too much credit; for I am confident you 
would have acted in the same manner if I had not 
been here. Now tell me something of this man 
Mr. Armistead has picked up. First of all, do you 
think he can do for him what Mr. Lloyd or yourself 
could have done?” 


218 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


“On general lines, no doubt, pretty much the 
same; though in some respects he’ll be handicapped 
by the fact that he is a stranger.” 

“And so doesn’t know anything about the different 
characters of the men here?” 

“Naturally not.” 

“Therefore will not know whom to select for — 
a surprise party, let us say?” 

Thornton stared. 

“So you know about it, too,” he said. 

“Since it seems that it is no secret, I may admit 
as much.” 

“Oh, it’s a secret fast enough! But, you see, 
Armistead was obliged to mention it when I asked 
what he wanted me to do.” 

“Yes, I see.” 

Miss Rivers leaned her soft chin on her hand and 
looked out over the sleeping valley to the great east- 
ern heights, their cliffs cutting sharply against the 
purple sky, with one deep indentation marking the 
pass over which she had watched a horseman disap- 
pear several days before. 

“How long does it take to go from here to the 
Santa Cruz Mine?” she asked abruptly. 

“Two or three days, — depends, of course, on how 
fast one travels. I don’t think Armistead has gone 
there,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. 

She smiled, for they had not been with Armistead. 

“Why do you not think so?” she inquired. 

“Well, he went in another direction — though that 


Miss Rivers Obtains a Promise. 219 

might have been a blind, — and he had only Ran- 
dolph with him. He can’t surprise the Santa Cruz 
without having a force large enough to hold it after 
it is surprised.” 

“He may have that force waiting for him some- 
where in the Sierra.” 

Thornton shook his head. 

“He hasn’t had anybody to get up the men. No : 
you may take my word that it will be some time yet 
before he carries out his plan ; and if the Santa Cruz 
people are only wide enough awake, it will never 
be successfully carried out.” 

“Surely they will be wide enough awake, — surely 
they will suspect something of this kind !” 

“I hope so, for my sympathies are all with them,” 
said Thornton, cordially. (His interest, however, 
was not very keen.) “And now if I bring the guitar 
will you sing a little?” he asked, in the tone of one 
turning to more agreeable things. 

A few days later Armistead returned as quietly as 
he had gone away, and still accompanied only by 
Randolph. On the evening of the day of his re- 
turn he presented himself at the Caridad house with 
all his usual air of self-complacency, and M : ss Rivers 
received him with the friendly cordiality she showed 
to everyone. 

“We have been wondering what had become of 
you,” she told him, quite truthfully. “You have been 
away for some time.” 

“Yes : I have been over to Canelas and to one or 


220 


A Daughter of the: Sierra. 


two other places,” he answered. “Charming place, 
Canelas, — buried in fruit-trees and flowers, with a 
picturesque old church that would set an artist wild. 
You ought to go there. It is just the kind of place 
you would enjoy.” 

“I intend to go there some day, but just now I 
am going into the Sierra. You are in time to bid 
me bon voyage. I leave to-morrow for Las Joyas.” 

Armistead looked as startled as he felt. 

“It can’t be possible,” he said, “that you are go- 
ing to that place?” 

“Not only going, but charmed, enchanted, de- 
lighted to go!” she answered gaily. “Why should 
you think otherwise? Haven’t you heard me say 
again and again how much I have wanted to go out 
into the Sierra?” 

“I have never been able to believe that you were 
in earnest in saying so.” 

“Which proves how little you know me. And 
haven’t you also heard me declare that I fell in 
love with Dona Victoria when we came up the que- 
brada together?” 

“One allows much for — ah — feminine exaggera- 
tion, you know.” 

“I really don’t know; for I am not accustomed 
either to exaggerate or to be allowed for. As a 
matter of fact, I meant exactly what I said in both 
cases ; so you may judge whether or not I am pleased 
to accept an invitation to her hacienda which Doha 
Victoria has kindly sent me?” 


Miss Rivers Obtains a Promise. 221 

Armistead looked grave. 

“I am sorry,” he said, “that you should think of 
going into the enemy’s camp.” 

Miss Rivers lifted her brows. 

“The enemy’s camp!” she repeated. “I’m afraid 
I don’t understand — whose enemy?” 

“Why mine, of course! You can’t have forgotten 
that I represent a claim which the Calderons are 
fighting.” 

“By no means; but surely you have not forgot- 
ten that I told you they have my best wishes for 
their success in the fighting.” 

“Telling me that and going off to their strong- 
hold is a different matter. Although I regretted the 
first, I haven’t much minded it because — er — ” 

“You were kindly disposed to overlook the inher- 
ent reasonableness of the feminine mind. I know: 
you have been good enough to tell me so before.” 

“Inherent unreasonableness! Oh, no, no! You 
have mistaken me greatly. I should rather say the 
delightful enthusiasm, the proneness to be influenced 
by — er — sympathy.” 

“All of which means precisely the same thing. 
Well, unreasonableness, enthusiasm, sympathy, or 
whatever you will, pray understand that I am a Cal- 
deron partisan; and if I could, I would help them 
fight for their rights.” 

Armistead succeeded in achieving a very reproach- 
ful expression. 

“You would help them against me?” he asked. 


222 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

“Against you or anybody else who fights for in- 
justice and greed.” 

The reproachful expression changed rapidly to 
one of offence. 

“I didn’t know that you regarded the matter in 
quite that light,” Armistead said stiffly. 

“I regard it exactly .in that light, as far as Mr. 
Trafford is concerned,” said Miss Rivers. “Of 
course I understand that you are acting merely as 
his agent.” 

“Reluctantly, I assure you. But, as I have tried 
to point out to Lloyd — ” 

“Who has manifested an almost feminine degree 
of unreasonableness on the subject, I believe.” 

“A donkey-like obstinacy would be describing it 
more correctly. Well, as I have tried to point out 
to him, if I gave up the matter, I should simply do 
myself an injury and accomplish nothing for the 
Calderons, since some one else would at once be 
sent here to conduct the fight against them.” 

“I remember that you have explained this to me 
before, and I think that I fully understand your — 
point of view.” 

“And the difficulty of my position, I hope — placed 
as I am between two fires.” 

“Mr. Trafford is one fire, I suppose; and the 
other — ” 

“The other is the fear of alienating your sym- 
pathy, of doing what you disapprove.” 

“Oh, really, you are very kind! But you give 


Miss Rivers Obtains a Promise. 223 

too much importance to my opinion,” protested 
Isabel, hastily. “I thought you were going to say 
that the other fire is the fear of injuring the Cal- 
derons, who have been already so deeply injured.” 

Armi stead shrugged his shoulders. 

“I confess that I haven’t given much thought to 
the Calderons,” he said frankly. “Their feelings 
and their injuries are altogether outside of my busi- 
ness.” 

Fortunately for himself, he did not understand the 
expression with which Miss Rivers regarded him. 
He was not the first man who had been unable to see 
anything beyond the beauty of those deep, brilliant 
eyes. He leaned forward suddenly. 

“Why should we talk of the Calderons ?” he asked. 
“The subject is not an agreeable one, because we do 
not agree in our view of it, and I would never wish 
to disagree with you.” 

“That would be very stupid!” laughed Isabel — a 
past mistress of the art of fencing. “If we never 
disagreed, we should soon have nothing to talk 
about.” 

“Oh, there are topics!” 

“Without doubt. The weather — but that doesn’t 
exist as a topic in Mexico, — not to speak of Shake- 
speare and the musical glasses. But I think I prefer 
the Calderons, or rather the Santa Cruz. Have you 
forgotten that you told me, when you first came to 
Topia, that you intended to take possession of the 
mine by means of a surprise?” 


224 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

“I have not forgotten, though I am afraid I was 
indiscreet in confiding my plans to one whose sym- 
pathies are with the enemy; although, of course, 
this does not mean that I imagine for a moment 
that you would betray my confidence.” 

If there is such a thing as an inward blush, Miss 
Rivers was conscious of it at this moment. She 
had not betrayed his confidence in the letter, but her 
conscience told her that she had come perilously near 
to doing so in the spirit ; and yet to regret it was im- 
possible. 

“I have been thinking of this plan of yours a great 
deal since I received Dona Victoria’s invitation,” 
she said. “You can see for yourself that it makes 
my position difficult. How can I accept or enjoy her 
hospitality, with the knowledge that any day, even 
while I am under her roof, the mine may be taken 
from her?” 

“If it were so, you would have had nothing to do 
with it.” 

“Nothing of course, unless it were that I knew 
and had failed to tell her all I knew, and that I 
should be connected by nationality and acquaintance 
with those who had done it. So” — she smiled, and 
few indeed were the men who had ever been able to 
resist that smile — “I want you to promise that you 
will defer your surprise until after I have made my 
visit to Las Joyas.” 

Armistead hesitated a moment, then suddenly saw 


Miss Rivers Obtains a Promise. 225 


his way to the advantage of doing a favor at not the 
least cost to himself. 

“How long shall you be at Las Joyas?” he asked. 

“Probably a week, then a week in the Sierra — 
going and coming.” 

“Two weeks!” he reflected. “It will be inconveni- 
ent — my plans are nearly completed for an earlier 
date, — but since you ask it, for you I will promise 
,to wait two weeks before surprising the mine.” 

“Thank you!” she said gratefully. “You have 
made my visit possible; for really if you had not 
promised, I don’t see how I could have gone. I 
should not have been able to enjoy anything, whereas 
now I shall try to forget about the Santa Cruz.” 

“I hope that you will forget it,” he said signifi- 
cantly. “If I had imagined it possible that you 
would be going to Las Joyas, I should never have 
mentioned the mine or my plans to you.” 

“Please believe that nothing will induce me to 
say a word of them or of you to Doha Victoria — 
to any one at Las Joyas,” she said earnestly. “I will 
not even think of the mine if I can avoid it — ” 

“Don’t add that you will not think of me; for if 
you do I must reconsider my promise.” 

“On the contrary, I shall think of you as having 
obliged me very much and helped to give me a great 
pleasure,” she said graciously. “But here comes 
papa! Papa, did you know Mr. Armistead had re- 
turned ?” 


CHAPTER XIX. 

“i have: be;e:n cast out of e:de:nA 

I NTO the life of Las Joyas a new element entered 
■ when Eloyd was borne senseless across its 
threshold. It was not only that he was the first of 
his race to be received there as a friend, since the 
one who had so basely betrayed the friendship he 
had found and the love he had won in this spot, but 
the circumstances surrounding his advent gave it a 
significance and influence which in their ultimate ef- 
fect could hardly be exaggerated. 

The first immediate effect was the conversion of 
Arturo Vallejo from an enemy into a friend. Those 
words of generous reassurance uttered by Lloyd as 
his mind struggled back to consciousness, not only 
won the gratitude of the young man, but his affec- 
tion as well, — an affection which he showed in a de- 
votion of personal service that at times annoyed 
Victoria. For she was not inclined to delegate to 
any one her right of caring for the man who had 
incurred his injury as a direct result of service ren- 
dered to herself ; and she impressed upon Arturo so 
frequently and so forcibly his responsibility for this 
injury, that Lloyd was at last driven to beg that 
the matter might be allowed to be forgotten. 

226 


Cast Out of Edfn. 


227 


“It was purely an accident,” he urged ; “and it is 
not right to make Don Arturo feel so badly about 
it.” 

“It was no accident which made him deliberately 
waylay and quarrel with you,” said Victoria. 

“Perhaps not; but it was a foolish, youthful im- 
pulse, of which he has thoroughly repented.” 

“It is right that he should repent,” she said in- 
flexibly. 

“But it is not right that you should continue to 
drive the occasion for repentance so remorselessly 
home,” he answered, smiling. “No great harm has 
been done. I have neither a broken head nor a dis- 
located neck — ” 

“It is no thanks to him that you have not.” 

“Very true; but our acts must be judged by their 
intention, and he had no intention of causing either 
the one or the other. Besides, he is now my 
amigo.” 

“So is everyone at Las Joyas,” said Victoria, 
gently. 

Which was quite true. For Las Joyas soon dis- 
covered that it was entertaining, if not an angel 
unawares, at least an altogether unique gringo. 
Don Mariano, who had much experience with the 
species, declared this solemnly. With the usual 
type — men who possess no manners worth speaking 
of, who exhibit a rough contempt for all habits and 
standards which differ from their own, and who 
seek with a fierce intensity the precious metal 


228 


A Daughter of the Sierra. 


which they hold at a value far transcending that of 
their own souls — he was familiar. It is a type very 
well known in Mexico, and considered to be repre- 
sentative of the genus Americano. But here was a 
man who was quiet, gentle, courteous as any Mexi- 
can, with a singular indifference toward everything, 
even the gold he had come so far to find. One and 
all of these people — so easily won by consideration, 
so bitterly resentful of rudeness and contempt — 
opened their hearts to him, and he speedily became 
“Don Felipe” to them, as to the woodcutters and 
miners and small rancheros all through the Sierra. 

The only exception — in some degree at least — 
was Doha Beatriz. And it was not strange that 
Doha Beatriz could not open her heart as the others 
(even her passionate, gringo-hating daughter) 
opened theirs to this gringo who had suddenly in- 
vaded her home in the irresistible strength of his 
weakness, and taken it by storm. She remembered 
how another had once entered there. And so subtle 
a thing is race that Lloyd’s accent, voice, manner, 
constantly reminded her of Trafford; although it 
would have been difficult to find two individuals less 
alike. His presence revived memories which even 
after the lapse of long years had a torturing power. 
It wakened the old bitterness, the old passions, and 
drove her to kneel for hours on the hard bricks of 
the chapel floor, praying for strength to overcome 
these terrible feelings and recollections. This be- 
ing so, it was natural that she could give no more 


Cast Out ot Ed*;n. 


229 


than gratitude and tolerance to the man who had 
indeed laid her under the obligation of service ren- 
dered, but whose presence recalled so much which 
she would gladly have given all the wealth of the 
Santa Cruz to forget. 

And there was another reason, stronger yet, for 
shrinking from him. She had caught now and then 
a look on her daughter’s face which made her ask 
herself if the old tragedy was, in any form to be re- 
peated. It seemed incredible that it could be so; 
but life had taught Doha Beatriz with very con- 
vincing force that it is often the incredible, as well 
as the unexpected, which happens. She said noth- 
ing to Victoria nor to any one else save God; but 
she carried about with her an abiding fear that the 
past would repeat itself; and that, through associa- 
tion with this alien, her daughter, in one way or 
another, would be called to follow in her own steps 
along the Via Dolorosa of a broken heart. 

It said much for her, and for the traditions under 
the influence of which she had been reared, that 
these feelings and these fears never betrayed them- 
selves in her manner. Toward Lloyd her gentle 
courtesy was unvarying; and on his side there was 
no one at Las Joyas for whom he felt such admira- 
tion and such deep respect as for this woman, with 
her noble presence and her eyes of haunting sweet- 
ness, who bore her great wrongs with a dignity and 
reticence which a queen could not have surpassed. 
He had no suspicion of her fears with regard to 


230 


A Daughter of the Sierra. 


himself ; for nothing was further from his thoughts 
than that he could ever be suspected of playing the 
part, however modified, of Trafford; and he would 
have laughed to scorn the suggestion that Victoria 
could find anything attractive in one who (he would 
have said quite honestly) possessed no qualities to 
win a girl’s fancy. They were simply good friends 
— Victoria and himself, — he would have said. He 
knew that she was grateful to him ; and he was not 
only interested in her from the pathos of her posi- 
tion, but he found a singular charm in her char- 
acter and companionship. It was the charm which 
Isabel Rivers had discerned when she quoted 
Wordsworth’s lines about her : 

And hers shall be the breathing balm, 

And hers the silence and the calm 
Of mute, insensate things. 

It was this “breathing balm,” this “silence and 
calm,” which Lloyd liked. Under these traits — 
far inherited characteristics of a race living for 
untold centuries close to Nature, amid the ever- 
lasting hills — he knew that there existed a depth of 
passion which could leap into fire, and a fund of 
energy which made her the dominating power on 
the hacienda and at the mine. But this energy, 
however resistless, was never feverish or restless. 
Generally speaking, people of much energy have no 
repose. They not only wear themselves out by the 
unceasing fret and turmoil in which they live, but 


Cast Out of Eden. 


231 


they “get upon the nerves” of others to a degree 
which is very trying. Victoria never got upon any 
one’s nerves. When not in immediate action, she 
was an embodiment of repose, to which her noble 
beauty lent itself as a vessel to the use for which it 
is perfectly fitted. Every movement, every gesture, 
expressed this repose; and when she spoke — she 
never chattered — the lovely Spanish words dropped 
from her lips like slow music. 

One day she came out to Lloyd on the corridor 
which ran along the front of the house. Here had 
been placed for his benefit one of the couches 
peculiar to the Sierra — a wooden frame about two 
feet high, on which was tightly stretched the hide 
of a bull. Such a couch makes a Spartan bed; but 
sweet is the sleep which comes to the wanderer who 
rests on it, especially if he lies under the stars of 
heaven, in the forest-scented air. Stretched out 
now on the drum-like surface Lloyd was lying, his 
arms forming a pillow for his head, and his eyes 
fastened on the distant hills, in a state of dreamy 
ease of mind and body, when Victoria’s shadow 
fell over him and he looked up at her with a smile. 

“Well, Lady of Silence !” he said, for neither her 
footfall nor her garments had made the least noise. 
“Have you come to share my dolce far niente ?” 

She smiled. The Italian term was new to her, but 
the beautiful sister tongues of Latin birth are so 
much alike that she had no difficulty in understand- 
ing it. 


232 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


“Yes, if you wish,” she answered, and sat down 
on a chair near by. Then, after a moment, added : 
“Do you find it sweet — this doing nothing?” 

“Very,” he replied concisely. 

“It is not usual with grin — with Americans to 
like to be idle, is it?” she asked. “I have heard that 
they are always in what you call ‘a hurry.’ ” 

He laughed at the familiar words on her lips. 

“There are Americans and Americans,” he an- 
swered. “I come from the South, where life still 
flows in easy, reposeful fashion; and where the 
people have not yet learned — although I grieve to 
say the lesson is being taught very fast — that ex- 
istence is given us merely to be spent in a mad, 
breathless, demoralizing chase after money.” 

“You are not chasing it, then?” she asked again, 
with interest. 

“Not very breathlessly, as you perceive. ‘Man 
that is born of woman hath but a short time to live,’ 
and I could never believe that it is well to spend 
that short time in laboriously gathering together a 
little wealth which must all be left behind when we 
go hence. There are, it seems to me, better and 
higher things to do with life’s short golden hours.” 

“And that is why you like the Sierra ?” 

“It is one reason. In the Sierra there is no sordid 
struggle of man with man for low and perishable 
ends; but there is the great majesty of Nature, 
which has power to uplift the mind and the soul to 
noble and eternal things.” Then to himself he mur- 
mured : 


Cast Out ot Edsn. 


233 


“What now to me the jars of life, 

Its petty cares, its harder throes? 

The hills are free from toil and strife, 

And clasp me in their deep repose. 

“They soothe the pain within my breast 
No power but theirs can ever reach; 

They emblem that eternal rest 
We can not compass in our speech.” 

Victoria regarded him curiously. 

“What are you saying?” she inquired. “I do not 
understand English.” 

“I was merely quoting some fragments of verse 
which have lain in my memory a long time,” he ex- 
plained. “They express better than I can the charm 
which the Sierra holds for me. When I am among 
the great hills and the deep woods, I feel that there 
is a healing process going on within me, as if balm 
were being poured into all my wounds.” 

“Have you many?” asked Victoria, with the di- 
rectness to which he had by this time grown accus- 
tomed. 

“Who has not ?” he asked in turn, evasively. And 
then, more from desire to change the subject than 
from curiosity, he added, glancing at her hand: 
“But what have you brought with you? It looks 
like a letter.” 

“It is a letter — from the senorita of the Caridad. 
What is it you call her — Mees Reevers?” 

“You would call her Doha Isabel,” said Lloyd, 
lifting himself up to take the letter which she ex- 


234 


A Daughter of the; Sierra. 


tended to him. It was indeed from Miss Rivers, 
stating that she would leave Topia for Las Joyas 
on the next — no, on the present day. Lloyd stared 
for a minute or two at the graceful writing on the 
pale gray paper, as if he found it hard to deciphei. 
Then he looked up. 

“You lost no time in following my suggestion 
about asking her to visit you ?” he remarked. 

“Why should I have lost time?” Victoria re- 
turned. “I could not do anything to please you too 
soon.” 

“You are very good — much too good,” he an- 
swered; “but — er — there was really no question of 
pleasing me in this matter. I am glad that Miss 
Rivers is coming: I know you will like her; but 
it chances that I must leave Las Joyas to-morrow.” 

“Leave — to-morrow!” Victoria was aghast. “It 
is impossible. You are not able to go.” 

“Oh, yes, I am thoroughly able! Nothing but 
your kindness and my own indolence has kept me 
here for a week past.” 

“I am sure that your head is not ‘all right’ yet,” 
she said, using the English expression which she 
had caught from him. 

He gave the head in question a shake, as if to 
test its condition. 

“It feels as right as I have any reason to hope 
that it ever will,” he assured her. 

“Not as well as it did before your accident?” 

“Yes, quite as well, I think.” 


Cast Out ot Ede;n. 


235 


There was a pause, during which Victoria re- 
garded him with the intentness which characterized 
her. He was conscious of the steady observation 
of the dark eyes, but he did not meet them. Sitting 
on the side of the couch, he drew a pipe from his 
pocket and began to charge it with “short-cut,” 
which required to be pressed down in the bowl with 
great care and attention. 

“I do not understand why you should go away as 
soon as you hear that the senorita is coming,” Vic- 
toria said at length. “I thought you liked her.” 

“So I do — very much,” Lloyd replied quickly; 
“and I regret not to have the pleasure of seeing 
her. But I was due at San Andres ten days ago, and 
I must really go to-morrow.” 

“I am sorry that I asked her to come, if her com- 
ing is to be the cause of your leaving,” Victoria went 
on. 

“But why should you think it the cause?” Lloyd 
asked. “On the contrary, I have business at San 
Andres — ” 

Victoria waved the business aside with an im- 
perious gesture. 

“You had not thought of going before you read 
that letter,” she said with positiveness. “And I 
do not see why the senorita should drive you 
away — ” 

“She is not driving me away,” Lloyd interposed, 
with what he felt to be perfectly futile protest. 

“Unless you dislike her — ■ Victoria proceeded. 

“I assure you that I like and admire her extreme- 
ly,” he now interposed eagerly. 


236 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

“Or you are in love with her,” Victoria ended 
calmly. 

“I ! — in love with her !” Lloyd was vexed to feel 
the blood mount in a tide to the roots of his hair, 
so entirely was he unprepared for this. “Why should 
you think anything so absurd?” he demanded al- 
most angrily. 

Victoria continued to regard him for a moment 
longer, and then she looked away — out over the 
green valley to the steadfast heights. “I have seen 
it in your face and heard it in your voice, when 
you spoke of her,” she answered quietly. 

There was again a silence, in which it was Lloyd’s 
turn to stare at the speaker. He knew well this 
power of reading the primitive emotions which chil- 
dren, savages, the unlearned, and some persons who 
share the traits of these — their simplicity of char- 
acter and feeling — possess: He felt that to argue 
against such divination, however much it over- 
leaped the actual truth, was useless ; and, moreover, 
a sudden idea, a sudden fear struck him with a 
sharp shock. What expression it was on the face 
somewhat turned from him which suggested this 
idea, this fear, it is impossible to say; but under a 
compelling impulse he spoke, very gravely : 

“You are mistaken, senorita. As I have said, I 
like and admire Miss Rivers as much as — well, as 
you will when you know her. But the feeling of 
which you have spoken is impossible on my part. 
It has no place in my life — I can not offer it to any 
woman.” 


Cast Out of Edfn. 


237 


She faced him now quickly. 

“Why not?” she asked peremptorily. 

“Because, for one thing, the power of it has been 
burned out of me,” he answered. “I will speak to 
you very frankly, because I think — I am sure — we 
are friends.” 

Her eyes met his with a gaze full, frank, direct. 

“Yes,” she said, “we are certainly friends.” 

“And friends should know the truth about each 
other, so as to avoid mistakes like this you have 
made in thinking — ” 

“In feeling” she said, as if to herself. 

“That it is possible for me to fall in love with 
any one.” He paused a moment. It was evidently 
hard for him to go on. “I would rather not tell 
you what happened to me long ago. But it was 
an experience which has made me an exile from 
my home for years, and which has also made it im- 
possible for me ever to make another home for 
myself. So I have wandered here and there — a 
lonely and unhappy man — until I came into the 
Sierra, and the Sierra gave me peace.” 

“I knew that you had suffered,” said Victoria. 
“I have thought : ‘Perhaps he has lost that which he 
loves best.’ ” 

“There is a sorrow deeper than losing that which 
one loves best,” he said, with stern bitterness. “It 
is learning that one never had anything worth los- 
ing ; it is learning that there is nothing in the world 
worth striving for, and nothing that gives any satis- 
faction after one possesses it. That is a sickness 


233 


A Daughter or the Sierra. 


of the soul which not even the Sierra can heal. But 
I do not want to talk of myself,” he added quickly 
and impatiently. “I only want to make you com- 
prehend that the things called love and happiness are 
not for me. They lie far behind me. I have been 
cast out of Eden long since, and there is no flam- 
ing sword necessary to warn me from its gates: I 
would not enter them again if I could. The fruit 
of the tree of knowledge is too bitter.” 

Victoria leaned toward him with the almost 
divine pity, which women are quick to feel for 
wounds such as these, shining in her eyes. 

“I wish that I could help you !” she said in a low 
tone. 

Tow as it was, there was a passion in it which 
started Lloyd. 

“No one,” he answered, with the sternness which 
had been in his voice before, “can help a man who 
has ruined his own life. I have done that, so waste 
no compassion on me. And don’t think that I com- 
plain: I only want you to — understand.” 

“I think I understand,” she said. Her glance 
turned again toward the great hills, the deep, en- 
compassing woods. “I am glad that the Sierra has 
given you peace,” she added softly. “Some day it 
may give you happiness as well.” 

“If so,” he answered — and his gaze turned also, 
with something of longing, toward the mountains 
and the forest— “it will only be, I think, in the form 
of the deepest peace which can come to man.” 


CHAPTER XX. 


IN THE) QUE)BRADA ONDA. 

A MONG the many quebradas which abound in the 
Sierra, the greatest and deepest, as its name 
implies, is the Quebrada Onda. This vast chasm 
cuts clear across the range, and is of such extent 
that no trail following the course of the Sierra can 
avoid it; so that those who journey there must of 
necessity consume at least half a day in going down 
into its depths and climbing out of them again. 
It is all up-and-down work; for the quebrada, 
though several thousand feet deep, is so narrow at 
the bottom that it would be possible to fling a stone 
across it. Hence the traveller who has followed 
the trail as it zigzags for miles down the steep moun- 
tain slopes to the depths of the abyss, must imme- 
diately face a similar acclivity on the opposite side, 
and has an opportunity to decide which is worse — to 
journey painfully and perilously downward or to 
strain laboriously and perilously upward. 

Most travellers pause a little between the two 
experiences, in order to rest themselves and their 
animals. But it is not likely that the marvellous pic- 
turesqueness of the spot appeals to many of them. 
The tourist has not yet penetrated into the Sierra; 

239 


240 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

and to those who journey among these mighty 
heights, the tremendous canon is only a very un- 
pleasant feature of the way. “Ah, que mala!” the 
arrieros say, shaking their heads, when the Que- 
brada Onda is mentioned; and this is the sum of 
popular opinion concerning it. 

Occasionally, however, chance brings a pair of 
eyes into these scenes which are capable of perceiv- 
ing their picturesque grandeur, their wild, entranc- 
ing loveliness. Such eyes belonged to one of two 
travellers who on a certain day rode down into the 
Quebrada Onda. The first of these was a Mexican 
— a mozo of the type found in rich men’s house- 
holds, — a man of muscular frame and honest, trust- 
worthy face, wearing tight-fitting breeches of 
leather, girded about the waist with a red 
sash; short jacket, also of leather, elaborately 
braided ; wide, heavily-trimmed sombrero, high 
boots and great spurs. The second was a young 
woman dressed in a habit of water-proof serge, 
and heavily veiled to guard against the sun- 
burn which even men dread in these regions ; 
but not so heavily as to hide the outlines of charm- 
ing features, nor to obscure the luminous glances 
of eyes which lost no detail of the beauty through 
which their owner was passing. These eyes were 
shining with delight when, as the two riders reached 
the bottom of the quebrada, the mozo who had led 
the way down the steep trail drew aside, and the 
girl — Miss Rivers, in brief — rode forward toward 


241 


In the Quebrada Onda. 

the crystal-clear stream which flows through the 
gorge. For Nature has lavished on this spot, hid- 
den deep in the everlasting hills, everything which 
is hers to give. Here are great masses of rock — like 
titanic bastions and towers, luxuriant verdure, 
groups of stately, tapering pines, flashing water, 
stupendous overshadowing heights, and far, far 
above a sky of lucent sapphire. 

“O Manuel,” she exclaimed in Spanish, “how 
beautiful — how wonderfully beautiful! You never 
told me the Quebrada Onda was so lovely!” 

“No, senorita,” responded Manuel, gravely. “It 
is bad — very bad indeed, the Quebrada Onda.” 

The girl laughed, not only at his words but for 
very joy in the beauty around her. 

“Oh, it is heavenly!” she cried. “I must have a 
picture of it. Quick ! give me my camera and bag.” 

She sprang lightly to the ground as she spoke; 
and the Mexican, who had already dismounted, lifted 
from his shoulder the straps of a camera case and 
a small bag and brought them to her. 

In an instant she had the camera out, and, going 
a little farther up the stream, where the channel was 
strewn with rocks, sprang from one to another 
until she gained a mid-point in the current. “Per- 
fect!” she said to herself, as her eye took in the 
view of the water, the rocks, the foliage, and the 
majestic heights, with their jutting cliffs, which 
closed the vista. But while she gazed into the 
“finder,” endeavoring to bring as much of this 


242 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

picture as possible into her photograph, a figure 
suddenly passed into her field of vision and paused 
there. A horseman had ridden into the stream 
where the trail crossed it, and sat motionless, while 
his horse drank, — his face turned with what she 
felt was astonishment toward herself. 

It was not necessary for her to look up to recog- 
nize this horseman. She knew him even in the 
“finder,” and was conscious of a distinct throb of 
pleasure, while the eyes behind the silvery veil 
shone a trifle more brightly. But she did not speak. 
She only smiled as she gave the touch which moved 
her shutter, and then quietly proceeded to wind up 
the camera for another view. 

Meanwhile Lloyd knew almost as soon as her- 
self what fortune — good or bad — it was which had 
befallen him. His heart did more than throb : it gave 
a great bound as he recognized the graceful figure, 
veiled though the face might be. For a moment he 
remained quite still. Then, touching his horse with 
the spur, he rode up the stream towards her. 

“So you have come into the Sierra, after all!” 
he said, as, drawing up beside the rock where she 
stood, he leaned from the saddle to take her hand. 

And Isabel, looking up at him, replied: 

“Did I not tell you that I would come? You were 
very discouraging about the prospect of our meet- 
ing. Yet, you see we have met — ‘after all/ as you 

say.” 


243 


In The: Que:brada Onda. 

“Yes, we have met,” he observed, in apparently 
unnecessary confirmation of her statement. “It 
is kismet ” 

If it occurred to her that he had not said he was 
glad to meet her, she showed no sign of any con- 
sciousness of the omission. Her manner had never 
been more brightly frank than when she replied : 

“And this is better than the mountain top on 
which I foretold that I should meet you. The Que- 
brada is the culmination of all the enchanting pic- 
turesqueness through which I have been traveling, 
and therefore it is the most appropriate place in 
which I could thank you for the invitation to Tas 
Joyas which has brought me into the Sierra. I 
am sure that I owe it to you.” 

“Only in a very limited sense. But are you 
wandering in the Sierra all alone, like a lady in a 
romance ?” 

“Oh, no! Papa is behind, with mozos and mules 
galore. But I ride in advance, in order to have time 
to stop and take pictures when I like. Manuel — you 
know our major domo — is in charge of me, and very 
sensible of his responsibility.” 

“He had better exercise it, then, by hurrying 
you on at present ; for there is a heavy cloud coming 
up. You can not see it from here, but it may over- 
take you before you reach the top of the mountain, 
if you do not make haste.” 

“A cloud!” She looked up incredulously at the 
strip of brilliant sky overhead. “I know it is near the 


244 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

season of the rains — everyone told us we should 
have come into the Sierra earlier, — but there are al- 
ways clouds for many days before it begins to rain, 
are there not? And even if it should rain, how 
would we be any better off at the top of the moun- 
tain than here?” 

“Not better off than here, perhaps; but better off 
than climbing a steep and dangerous trail, hanging 
between heaven and earth.” 

“Then, cloud or no cloud, I shall wait here for 
papa. And meanwhile it strikes me that, unless 
you are in haste to go on, fate seems to have clearly 
intended that you shall make a sketch for me of 
this wonderful place.” 

“I should be very happy to do so, but I have no 
materials for drawing.” 

She motioned toward the bank where her bag 
lay. 

“I have everything there; for I, too, make at- 
tempts at sketching sometimes. So if I am really 
not detaining you — ” 

It would have been easy to say that he could not 
delay, to express regret at his inability to gratify 
her, to utter a few platitudes of farewell, to shake 
hands, to ride away; but he did none of these 
things. A great hunger leaped up within him to 
enjoy for a little while the delight of her society, to 
taste for a little while the things he had renounced. 
What did a few hours more or less matter? It 
would be no more than that — a few hours or minutes 


In The Quebrada Onda. 


245 


of pleasure such as might never again come into his 
life. And if this pleasure was to be paid for after- 
ward with pain — well, had he not learned that pain 
is the price which, sooner or later, must be paid for 
all things? 

“You are not delaying me,” he said. “Wherever 
night finds me in the Sierra I lie down and sleep. 
But even if you were, there are delays which are 
pleasures. Can I assist you to the shore ?” 

She shook her head. 

“There is no need. I shall be there as soon as 
you, and then we’ll decide on the best point of view. 
I want those grand cliffs, which I couldn’t bring into 
my photograph.” 

And so it came to pass that, far down in the 
depths of the wildest canon of the Sierra, Lloyd, 
putting all thought of past or future away from 
him, knew some entirely happy moments. For if 
he had found Isabel Rivers charming when he met 
her in Topia, where the atmosphere around them 
was in a certain sense conventional, what term could 
fitly describe what he found her now, when the spell 
of the Sierra, its wild freedom and surpassing 
beauty, seemed to have entered into and to possess 
her “like a passion”? While they sat together and 
he sketched the scene before them, she talked to 
him of the other scenes through which she had been 
passing, and every word was full of keenest pleasure 
and deepest appreciation. 

“I have been in many picturesque countries,” she 


246 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

said, “but I have never felt in the same degree the 
exaltation of which one is conscious here. One 
does not feel as if breathing common air. It is an 
elixir of the gods. And the untrodden freshness, 
the majesty of these great heights — ” Then, 
abruptly : “You have read ‘Prince Otto/ of course?” 

“Long ago — at least as long as is possible.” 

“Do you remember — but if you are a lover of 
Stevenson you must — the flight of the princess? 
Some of the words have been singing in my memory 
during the last two days. Do you remember this, 
‘Upon all these things, as she sped along in the 
bright air, she looked with a rapture of surprise 
and a joyful fainting of the heart; they seemed so 
novel, they touched so strangely home, they were 
so hued and scented, they were so beset and cano- 
pied by the dome of the blue air of heaven’ ?” 

“I remember them,” he said; and to himself he 
added that they would ever after be associated 
with a voice which was like a haunting strain of 
music, and the shining of a pair of eyes full of 
golden light. 

“I am not very much like the princess,” Isabel 
went on, with a laugh; “but the description has 
seemed to suit my case. I, too, as I have ‘sped along 
in the bright air,’ have ‘looked with a rapture of 
surprise’ on scenes so beautiful that they have 
seemed to touch and thrill in the deepest, strangest, 
yet most familiar manner. Is there a strain of the 
dryad in some of us, — or the gypsy, perhaps ?” 


In the: Que;brada Onda. 247 

“The dryad in you, I am sure — Ah, there it 
comes !” 

What came was a blaze of white light around 
them, and simultaneously a crash of thunder over 
their heads which seemed to shake the encompassing 
heights. Lloyd sprung to his feet almost as hastily 
as he had sprung when they sat together at the 
San Benito and he heard the sound of the loosened 
boulder on the mountain side above them. 

“Come !” he said. “There isn’t a moment to lose, 
if you don’t want to be drenched to the skin.” 

“But — where can we go?” she asked bewildered, 
snatching up her camera, while he stuffed the draw- 
ing materials into the bag and threw it over his 
shoulder. 

“You’ll see,” Lloyd answered. “Only come quick- 
ly, for the rain will be here in a half a minute.” 

She asked no more questions, but ran with him to- 
ward Manuel and the animals. The former stood a 
picture of consternation. 

“Ah, Don Felipe!” he gasped, as Lloyd came up. 
“Las aguas have arrived ! I told Don Roberto — ” 

“The mule of the senorita — quick !” Lloyd inter- 
rupted. 

He seized the bridle of the animal, held out his 
hand, and the next instant she was in the saddle. He 
flung himself into his own, and, bidding her follow 
him, dashed across the stream. On the other side 
he turned down the quebrada toward a mass of 
towering cliffs which projected from the over- 


248 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

shadowing mountain. Another blinding flash of 
lightning, another terrific crash of thunder, and the 
rain came down in a pouring sheet just as he led the 
way, at breakneck pace, up a steep incline to the 
shelter of a great overhanging rock, which formed 
the roof of a deep cave. Here he sprang quickly to 
the ground as Miss Rivers rode up. 

“Any port in a storm !” he said. “Here we can 
at least keep dry .” 

“Why, this is an admirable port!” she gasped 
breathlessly. “Who could have imagined such a 
perfect place of shelter within reach !” 

“There are many of these caves along the trail — 
regular camping places of the arrieros. But I think 
not many know of this in the Quebrada Onda.” 

“It is lucky for us that you knew of it. Manuel, 
what should we have done if we had not met the 
senor ?” 

“Very badly, senorita,” Manuel, who had now 
ridden up, acknowledged. “For I did not know of 
this place, although I know many like it farther 
along the way. The blessed saints must have sent 
the senor to assist us.” 

“I did not think of that,” said Isabel, looking at 
Lloyd; “but it is quite evident that fate — or the 
blessed saints — had a kinder purpose even than I 
imagined in sending you into the Quebrada Onda. 
You have certainly played the part of a guardian 
angel, although it has been somewhat unwillingly. 
For if you knew of this place of shelter, why did 


In the Quebrada Onda. 249 

you want to send us on in the face of a coming 
storm ?” 

Lloyd felt himself flush. 

“When I advised your hastening on,” he said, “I 
didn’t think of this shelter. I thought only of your 
getting over the dangerous part of the trail before 
the storm came up.” 

“Would we have been over it now, if I had gone 
on when you advised?” 

“No: you would not have been half-way up the 
mountain. Your position would have been fright- 
fully exposed and very perilous. So I am exceedingly 
glad you didn’t follow my advice.” 

“And your own position — where would you have 
been ?” 

“At a corresponding elevation on the opposite 
side of the quebrada.” 

“Then, by remaining here, I saved you as well 
as myself from a thorough drenching — to speak of 
nothing worse?” 

“There is no doubt of it, and I beg that you will 
accept my best thanks for the service.” 

“I am glad that I have slightly repaid my obli- 
gations to you. I have saved you from getting wet, 
if I have not snatched you from under a falling 
boulder or made artistic sketches for you. This is 
a pleasure which enables me to forgive you for so 
plainly desiring to get rid of me.” 

“My dear Miss Rivers — ” 


250 


A Daughter otf the: Sie;rra. 


“Ah, don’t deny it! You did want to get rid of 
me. And it was very ungrateful, for I was so glad 
to see you — oh! not for a selfish reason (I caught 
your glance at the bag), but because I wanted to 
thank you for all the pleasure I owe to you, since 
but for you I should probably never have come into 
the Sierra; and to talk to you about it as I can not 
talk to any one else. For we feel alike on that subject 
at least.” 

“And on many beside, I hope,” said Lloyd. “But 
you can not really think me so churlish as not to ap- 
preciate — by Jove, what a blaze and what a crash! 
No wonder Manuel crosses himself. You had bet- 
ter draw farther back into the cave, Miss Rivers; 
for the storm is increasing in violence, and the very 
windows of heaven seem opened.” 


CHAPTER XXL 


IN A cave: of the sierra. 

ISMET! — “It is Eate!” Lloyd had said when 
x he found whom he had been journeying to meet 
in the Quebrada Onda; and he repeated the words 
to himself while be sat beside Miss Rivers in their 
place of refuge during the hour or so that the rain 
lasted. It was a torrential downpour, accompanied 
by lightning which filled the air with the blinding 
glare of its white fire, and thunder which echoed in 
crashing peals from crag to crag. Lloyd arranged 
a seat for Isabel in the back of the cave, where the 
• rock shelved down nearly touching their heads ; and 
he was relieved to note her fearlessness in the face 
of a storm which tried even the iron nerves of 
Manuel, and made the animals now and again start 
and quiver from head to foot, as some particularly 
vivid flash of electricity seemed to envelop them, 
some terrific shock of thunder to shake the solid 
foundations of the granite hills. At such moments 
he found himself glancing apprehensively at his 
companion ; and he had a new realization of what a 
great thing is courage when he met her eyes, bright 
with excitement and something like pleasure. 

251 


252 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

“Isn’t it magnificent?” she cried to him once or 
twice ; and he shouted back : 

“Wonderful !” 

But Lloyd had occasion to repeat “Kismet” 
again, when, after the storm had passed — the cloud 
rolling away, with its thunder still echoing sullenly 
among the heights, and a great flood of sunshine 
breaking forth and making the world brilliant, — 
he went out like the dove from the Ark, to learn 
how matters were ; and, like that adventurous wan- 
derer, found that the waters covered the face of the 
earth, — at least all that part of the earth which at 
present concerned him. The river, which even in 
its normal state flowed very near the foot of the 
height in which the cave was situated, had now 
risen until it swept the base of the cliff, completely 
covering the path by which they had gained their 
eyrie; so that to leave it was impossible without 
incurring certain discomfort and possible danger. 

It was with a very grave face that he returned, 
shook his head in answer to Manuel’s eager in- 
quiries, and went up to Miss Rivers, who was now 
standing on the verge of the great rock, gazing 
rapturously out over the marvellous beauty of the 
rain-drenched, sun-bathed scene, and listening to 
the sound of the streams, which formed a wonder- 
ful diapason of harmony. For blending with the 
deep voice of the river below, was the music 
of unnumbered waterfalls, leaping in white cas- 
cades over rocks and down defiles where be- 


In a Cavs of The; Sie;rra. 253 

fore the rain had been no drop of water; their 
flashing, tumbling beauty glimpsed through the 
wealth of verdure which was already fresher, 
greener, more delightful to the eye for the gracious 
gift of the rain; and their hurrying waters singing 
as they poured into the gorge “to join the brim- 
ming river.” Isabel held up her hand with a silenc- 
ing gesture as Lloyd came to her side. 

“Listen!” she said. “Is it not like a grand Te 
Deumf As if Nature were calling aloud, praising 
and thanking God !” 

He was silent for a moment, listening as she 
commanded. Then he said: 

“Yes; the Sierra is speaking. I have often gone 
far out into the mountains after a storm to listen 
to its voice. There is nothing like it, when the 
great hills, unlocking their fountains, send up a 
cry to Heaven — though whether it is a Te Deum or 
not I can’t say.” 

“Isn’t it worshipful enough to be one?” 

“What is worshipful, like the prosperity of a jest, 
rests in the ear of the listener. To me it only ex- 
presses the spell of the Sierra, its austere loneli- 
ness, its wild and perfect solitude.” 

She looked at him now with a smile. 

“It is the loneliness which appeals to you most, 
is it not?” she said. “I begin to understand why 
you do not care to meet your friends in the Sierra.” 

“And yet,” he parried reproachfully, “you said 


254 A Daughter oe the: Sierra. 

only a little while ago that you, too* felt the charm 
of the loneliness of these enchanting solitudes.” 

“I do,” she eagerly affirmed. “Indeed I can un- 
derstand how the charm might become so great 
that one would break away from all the attractions 
and restraints of civilization to bury oneself in 
the wild, green recesses of the hills, and to say with 
all one’s heart : 

Now thanks to heaven, that of its grace 
Hath led me to this lonely place!” 

It was his turn to smile. “I hope you will re- 
main thankful to Heaven for leading you to this 
particular lonely place when you hear that all these 
melodious waters have made you a prisoner,” he 
observed. 

“A prisoner ! Impossible ! How could they — in so 
short a time?” 

“You don’t know the resources of the Sierra. 
Besides, that rain was a veritable cloud-burst, con- 
centrated in this quebrada. Look down — but give 
me your hand before you do so, — and you will 
see how the river has risen over our path.” 

She gave him her hand, and, leaning out over the 
edge of the beetling cliff, glanced down at the river, 
which, churned to white foam over its rocks, swept 
in turbulent, rushing flood below. When she drew 
back she looked a trifle startled. 

“It has certainly risen very high and has a very 
wild aspect,” she said; “but it can’t possibly be 


In a Cave; of the; Sie;rra. 255 

deep. We must simply ride through it. A little wet- 
ting will not matter.” 

“You would get more than a little wetting if you 
attempted to ride through that water — even if your 
mule could keep his footing, which is doubtful,” 
Lloyd answered. “There is a terribly strong cur- 
rent. I tried it.” 

“You tried it!” Miss Rivers’ glance swept over 
him and rested on some soaked garments. “Plainly 
you don’t mind a wetting.” 

“Oh,” he said carelessly, “I turned back when the 
water rose over my boots ! I saw that it would not 
do for you to venture. There is really nothing for it 
but to stay here until the stream goes down.” 

“And how long will that be?” 

“Not more than a few hours.” 

“A few hours ! What will papa think has become 
of me? And what will he do.” 

“If he comes down into the quebrada, he will 
have to remain on the other side of the river until 
it falls.” 

“In absolute uncertainty about my fate — whether 
I have been swept away by the flood or struck by 
lightning!” 

“I don’t think Mr. Rivers has a sensational imag- 
ination. I have no doubt he will be anxious about 
you, but he will not be likely to anticipate anything 
worse than that you have been thoroughly 
drenched.” 

“As I certainly should have been but for you. I 


256 


A Daughter or the: Sie;rra. 


suppose there is no doubt, alas ! that he has been 
drenched ?” 

“Not much, I fear. But he is an old Sierra trav- 
eller, who knows how to take care of himself and 
to accept the inevitable with philosophy.” 

“Which we must practise also. Manuel, do you 
know that the river has made us prisoners here?” 

“Yes, senorita,” Manuel replied; “but that is 
better than that we should have been without shelter 
in the storm. We can wait until the waters go 
down.” 

“What do you think Don Roberto is saying?” 

Manuel shrugged his shoulders. Plainly he did 
not care to commit himself to any conjecture on 
this point. 

“He will be glad when he knows that the senorita 
has been so safe,” he replied. 

The senorita laughed as she sat down on a stone. 

“Really,” she said, “this is quite unexpectedly 
adventurous! I think I should positively enjoy it 
if you were a shade more hospitable, Mr. Lloyd.” 

“What can I do?” Lloyd asked. “My castle is 
yours, but the possibilities of hospitality are some- 
what limited — unless I can offer a little tequila — ?” 

Miss Rivers declined the tequila by a gesture. 

“You might sit down and try to look as if you, 
too, were enjoying the adventure,” she suggested. 

He sat down promptly. 

“There is no trying required,” he declared. “I 
have only been repressing my enjoyment because 


In a Cave; of the: Sikrra. 25 7 

I felt that I ought to sympathize with your anxiety 
to get away.” 

“But you see I am not suffering from anxiety. 
On the contrary, I am resigned to being a troglodyte 
as long as necessity requires. And now what shall 
we talk about? Oh, of course the Santa Cruz! You 
have not told me anything about it.” 

“There is nothing to tell. The enemy’s forces 
may be mobilized, but they have not yet made a 
hostile demonstration. In other words, there has 
been no attempt to ‘jump’ the mine.” 

“I am glad to be able to assure you that no at- 
tempt will be made for some time. Mr. Armistead 
has promised that nothing of the kind shall take 
place while I am at Las Joyas.” 

“Did he give you an explicit promise to that ef- 
fect?” Lloyd asked with some surprise. 

“Quite explicit. Why do you smile? You don’t 
— you can’t think he would break it?” 

“I merely smiled at the proof of your power over 
him. I could not have believed that Armistead 
would yield a point of business even for you.” 

“He has not yielded it, — you quite overrate my 
influence. He has only agreed to delay a step 
which, frankly, I don’t think he is altogether ready 
to take. You see your defection has embarrassed 
him greatly.” 

“No doubt,” said Lloyd, a little dryly. “By the 
by, whom has he now to assist him? When I left 


258 A Daughter of thf SiKRRA. 

Topia he expected to obtain assistance from Mr. 
Rivers.” 

“Papa could not think of helping him, and Mr. 
Thornton refused; so he has picked up some one — 
an American named Randolph, I believe.” 

“Randolph !” Lloyd frowned, as if the name had 
unpleasant associations. “Who is he, — where does 
he come from?” 

“Arizona, I think — or perhaps he was only con- 
nected with a mine there. But is it possible that 
you have heard nothing at all of these important 
matters since you left Topia?” 

“Perfectly possible. One hears very little in the 
Sierra, thank God!” 

“You have been living in a cave, perhaps?” 

“Very far from it. I have been at Las Joyas, laid 
up with a broken head.” 

“Mr. Lloyd!” 

“Or if not broken exactly,” he corrected him- 
self, “sufficiently near it to be damaging and uncom- 
fortable. Briefly, there was an accident. I fell 
down the mountain of the Santa Cruz, was picked 
up insensible and taken to Las Joyas — ” 

“A moment, please!” interrupted Miss Rivers, re- 
garding him closely and a little suspiciously. “You 
have not said how the accident occurred. I am sure 
you are far too good a mountaineer to have fallen 
down a mountain.” 

“You are very kind ; but, owing to the attraction 
of gravity, even the best of mountaineers must fall 
if he is thrown over the edge of a precipice.” 


In a Cave oe the Sierra. 259 

“And you were thrown — ” 

“By my horse. Now, lest you should say that so 
good a horseman should not have been thrown, I had 
better admit that Don Arturo Vallejo had hold of 
the bridle of the horse, and there was something in 
the nature of — er — a struggle going on.’’ 

“Where?” 

“On a shelf-like path leading out from the Santa 
Cruz Mine, admirably adapted for accidents of the 
kind.” 

“Did this occur when you went to the mine to 
give the warning?” 

“Exactly!” 

He was surprised by the look that came into 
her eyes. 

“And I sent you !” she said in a low voice. “And 
you might have been killed !” 

“But I wasn’t killed,” he hastened to assure her, 
somewhat unnecessarily. “I wasn’t even badly hurt ; 
and Don Arturo is now my very good friend; so 
there is no harm done.” 

“I don’t know” — she was quite pale as she con- 
tinued to gaze at him. “I feel as if this matter 
had almost touched tragedy, and as if it may touch 
it again.” 

He did not care to tell her how very nearly it had 
come to touching tragedy. Instead he said lightly : 

“Let us hope not. As for my accident, I should 
not have mentioned it, if it were not certain that 
you would hear of it at Las Joyas.” 


260 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

“Yes, of course I should hear of it,” she said. 
“And Dona Victoria — what part has she played in 
it all?” 

“Doha Victoria has left nothing undone to show 
her gratitude for the warning conveyed to her.” 

“Ah!” Miss Rivers looked away for a moment, 
over the wild beauty of the gorge, where white mists 
were rising like fairy phantoms from the defiles of 
the heights, before she said, meditatively : “It 
sounds very like the first chapter of a romance.” 

“Only it happens to be the last,” said Lloyd, a 
little curtly. “After this I shall leave the Santa Cruz 
to fight its battle unaided by me.” 

Miss Rivers shook her head. 

“No,” she said. “I am convinced to the con- 
trary. I have an instinct that you are destined to 
play a further part in the fight over the Santa Cruz.” 

“I shall promptly prove to you that no reliance 
is to be placed in such instincts. I am on my way 
now to San Andres, and I shall not return to this 
part of the Sierra.” 

“You are on your way!” She laughed a little 
mockingly. “Very much on your way, thanks to 
the storm and the river and — me!” 

“The storm is over, the river will go down, and 
I shall have the — ” 

“Pleasure?” 

“No: regret of bidding you adieu when we leave 
this cave, since our ways lie in exactly opposite di- 
rections.” 


In a Cave: ot the: Sie:rra. 261 

“Mr. Lloyd/’ said the young lady gravely, “have 
you not learned that no man is stronger than Fate ?” 

Lloyd looked at her with a slightly startled ex- 
pression. How was it that she should utter the 
words that had been in his mind ever since he 
rode down into the river and saw her standing 
on the rocks? 

“Yes,” he said, with a gravity more real than 
hers : “I have learned it.” 

“Then why do you say such futile things? You 
may go to San Andres, you may go to the other 
side of the Sierra or of the world; but if you are to 
play a part at the Santa Cruz, you will be there 
to play it at the destined time, just as you were in the 
Quebrada Onda, as if by appointment, to meet me, 
whom you had said in Topia you would not meet.” 

“This grows serious,” said Lloyd, rising to his 
feet and trying to speak lightly. “If you not only 
make prophecies but bring about their fulfilment, I 
must endeavor to remove myself from the sphere of 
your influence. Therefore I will go and dare the 
raging flood, to find out if anything is to be seen 
of your father.” 

“Oh, you must not ! Sit still, and I will prophesy 
pleasant things — that we will never meet again, for 
example — ” 

“You are growing so unkind that I must go. 
Seriously, I want to test the water, and also, if Mr. 
Rivers is in the quebrada, let him know that you 
are safe.” 


262 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

Unheeding remonstrances, he mounted and rode 
away. The two left behind watched anxiously as 
the swirling water rose deeper and deeper about 
horse and rider, until it almost covered the former’s 
back. 

“In another minute they will be swimming,” said 
Manuel. 

But that minute carried them around the jutting 
point of the cliff, where the river, unable to spread 
out, had reached such dangerous depth, and they 
were lost to sight, as they gained higher ground 
in a wider part of the quebrada. 

It seemed an age, but it was really not more than 
half an hour, before Lloyd came splashing back, rid- 
ing up the ascent into the cave and dismounting with 
a graver face than he had worn before. 

“Miss Rivers,” he said, “I am very sorry to tell 
you that your father has gone on.” 

“Gone on !” the girl cried, aghast. “But you said 
he could not cross the river.” 

“He evidently crossed it at the beginning of the 
storm, before the water rose so high. Then, think- 
ing you were ahead, he pushed on as soon as he pos- 
sibly could. The tracks are very plain.” 

“How unfortunate!” she exclaimed, with deep 
concern. Then, seizing the only practical conclu- 
sion, added : “We must follow as soon as possible.” 

“Yes,” Lloyd agreed, “we must follow as soon as 
possible.” 


CHAPTER XXII. 


A ride: in the: greenwood. 

Twilight falls soon in the Quebrada Onda. 

Long before the sun has ceased to gild the upper 
world, shadows gather in the great earth-rift and 
darkness falls there, while yet all the lovely spaces 
of the sky above are filled with light. Under the 
mighty rock which formed the roof of the cave 
where the little party of three had taken refuge, 
these shadows naturally gathered earliest; and it 
was the perception of advancing darkness which 
presently brought Miss Rivers to her feet with an 
air of determination. 

“Mr. Lloyd,” she said, “I have made up my mind. 
If you could ride through that water, I can. It is 
only a question of getting wet, and that doesn’t mat- 
ter.” 

“I am afraid you will find that it matters very 
much,” said Lloyd, as he also rose, conscious of a 
sense of relief; although he felt bound to remon- 
strate, for the falling shades had filled him with a 
disquiet which was reflected in the gravity of his 
face. “You will be wetted to your waist,” he added, 
warningly. 


263 


264 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

“It doesn’t matter,” she repeated. “We must get 
away from here. Night is at hand. Could we ride 
up that mountain in the night?” 

“It would be extremely dangerous to attempt to 
do so.” 

“Well, you see, then, how necessary it is to lose 
no time in starting. My father must be very anxious 
about me, and the only way to relieve his anxiety 
is to go to him. Please look that my saddle is all 
right — ” 

“I will change it to my horse, if you have no 
objection. He is taller than your mule.” 

The exchange was made, the young lady mounted, 
and they rode down from the eyrie which had so 
unexpectedly become a trap, into the current of the 
swirling river. To Lloyd’s very great relief, the 
water had fallen a little. It was still high — very 
high, — and once or twice there seemed danger that 
the animals would lose their footing ; but they passed 
safely around the cliff and then to the higher ground 
at the edge of the quebrada. Isabel laughed a lit- 
tle as they splashed through the shallower water. 

“To dare is generally to succeed,” she said. “Why 
didn’t I ride out with you when you tried this be- 
fore, or at least as soon as you came back?” 

“It was higher then,” said Lloyd; “and I really 
think that you are sufficiently wet as it is.” 

He dismounted as he spoke — for they had now 
reached dry ground, — and regarded her soaked feet 
and skirts a little ruefully. But she laughed again 


A Ride: in the: Greenwood. 265 

as he assisted her from the saddle, which was now to 
be changed again to her mule. 

“What does a little wetting matter?” she asked. 
“I am sure I shall suffer no harm from it; and 
as for discomfort — bah! One would not come out 
into the Sierra without expecting to rough it a bit. 
I should have been very much disappointed if I had 
met with no adventures.” 

Lloyd laughed in turn, so delightful was her gay 
good-humor. 

“It is plain that the Sierra intends to give you 
all that it has to give, adventures among the rest,” 
he said as he unbuckled girths and assisted Manuel 
to change the saddles. 

Miss Rivers meanwhile looked up at the sky, 
which seemed so very far above their heads. 

“It is not as late as I thought,” she observed. 
“Possibly the sun may yet be in evidence some- 
where. If only we can gain the top of the mountain 
before dark — are you quite sure papa has gone on 
ahead, Mr. Lloyd?” 

“I don’t think there can be a doubt of it,” Lloyd 
replied. “There was every sign of a party having 
passed across the river and up the mountain about 
the time the storm began; and as I suppose Mr. 
Rivers was not very far behind you — ” 

“Certainly not very far.” 

“It must have been his party. So — why, hallo! 
what’s that?” 


266 


A Daughter of the; Sifrra. 


Isabel’s gaze followed his, which had suddenly 
fixed itself on a point across the river, and she saw 
at once what had arrested his attention. It was 
the leaping blaze of a camp-fire, kindled on a low 
spur of the mountain which rose on the other side 
of the quebrada. The same thought came to her 
as to him. 

“Can it be papa?” she exclaimed. 

Lloyd turned to Manuel. 

“Do you think that is Don Roberto?” he asked. 

The Mexican gazed keenly for an instant across 
the quebrada, and then shook his head. 

“No, senor,” he answered, “that is not Don Rob- 
erto. Those are not the mules or the men of the 
Caridad.” 

Lloyd looked at Miss Rivers. 

“I think he is right,” he said. “Shall we go on — 
or would you like more certainty?” 

“We can have more certainty,” she answered. 
She held out her hand to Manuel. “Give me the 
glasses,” she said. 

Manuel started with recollection, opened a sack 
filled with miscellaneous articles which hung by a 
strap across his shoulder, and produced a leather 
case which he handed to Miss Rivers, who took 
out of it a pair of opera-glasses. 

“They are not field-glasses,” she said, as she 
handed them to Lloyd; “but they are very good of 
their kind, and will enable you to tell who is over 
there.” 


A Ride in the Greenwood. 267 

Indeed as soon as Lloyd had adjusted the focus 
to his vision he saw with perfect clearness that the 
group of men and animals on the hillside was not 
the Caridad party. But, although immediately con- 
vinced of this, he did not lower the glasses from his 
eyes, but continued to gaze through them for a 
minute or two. 

“Certainly not Mr. Rivers nor any of the Caridad 
people,” he said positively. “But I’d like to know 
who they are.” 

“Arrieros, perhaps ?” 

“No; for they have no packs, and they seem, 
from the number of animals, to be all mounted. 
It is a travelling party clearly, and I am a little 
curious to know if a suspicion I have is correct. 
Here, Manuel, take these glasses and tell me if you 
ever saw any of those men before.” 

Manuel took the glasses, and had hardly looked 
through them before he uttered an exclamation. 

“But yes, senor,” he said, “I know almost all 
of them. They are men from Canelas, and even — 
yes, there is Pepe Vargas from Tamezula, and 
Tobalito Sanchez and Cruz and Pancho Lopez. 
Caramba ! but it is wonderful to see men’s faces 
like this, at such a distance.” 

“Do you know the senor who is with them?” 

Manuel hesitated before replying. 

“He has his hat pulled over his face so that I can 
not be sure,” he said; “but he looks to me like an 
Americano whom I have seen in Topia with the 
Senor Armistead,” 


268 A Daughter of the Sifrra. 

Lloyd nodded as his eyes met those of Miss 
Rivers. 

“It is as I thought,” he said. 

“What do you mean?” she asked quickly. “It 
can’t be that you think it is the party for the Santa 
Cruz?” 

“It is just that I am pretty sure.” 

“But Mr. Armistead promised — ” 

“Sometimes the undue zeal of subordinates can 
be made to account for broken promises, or there 
may really be no intention of breaking the promise. 
I’ll find out what is intended as soon as possible. The 
river is too high to cross now.” 

“How will you find out?” 

“By a few discreet inquiries when I return here, 
which will be as soon as we find Mr. Rivers.” 

A smile came into Miss Rivers’ eyes and curved 
her lips. 

“I believe you mentioned a little while ago that 
you were resolved to leave the Santa Cruz matter 
severely alone in future,” she remarked. 

“The Santa Cruz matter will not leave me alone, 
it appears,” Lloyd answered a little grimly, as, with 
his hand under her foot, he lifted her lightly into 
the saddle. 

“I wish you did not feel it necessary to go so 
much out of your way by accompanying me,” she 
said, as she gathered up her reins. “Manuel can 
very well take care of me.” 

“You must know that it is impossible for me to 


A Ride in the Greenwood. 269 

think of leaving you until I have seen you safely 
with your father/’ Lloyd replied, as he swung into 
his own saddle. 

And something in his tone — a shade of stern res- 
olution rather than of pleasure or of compliment — 
made her feel that further protest was useless. It 
also amused her a little; for such was not the tone 
usually employe by men whom fortune gave the 
opportunity of serving her. 

So they commenced the toilsome ascent out of 
the deep chasm, along the difficult and perilous trail 
which Lloyd had descended earlier in the day. Its 
difficulty and peril were very much increased by 
the torrents of rain which had lately fallen upon 
the mountain side, washing away soil, dislodging 
rocks, in places entirely effacing the path. The 
animals struggled gallantly over the obstacles of 
the way, the slender-legged mules climbing like 
cats; but such vigilant attention was required on 
the part of the riders that not even Isabel had any 
attention to spare for the noble view which opened 
as they climbed higher — the great world of heights, 
cleft by dark gorges and faced by sun-smitten cliffs, 
that unrolled like a scroll around them, spreading 
until its blue distance blended into the blue infinity 
of the sky. 

But when at last they gained the final summit 
and paused for their panting animals to rest, they 
found themselves not only “ringed with the azure 
world,” but in a realm of radiant light. For dark 


270 


A Daughter or the: Sie;rra. 


as had seemed the gathering shades in the quebrada, 
the sun had been, as Isabel conjectured, in evidence 
elsewhere, and was now just sinking with magnifi- 
cent resplendency behind the far, blue western 
heights; while in the eastern heaven the moon 
floated like a great silver balloon in the pellucid 
depths of sapphire. Over the whole vast scene, the 
wide expanse of this virgin world, so full of pri- 
meval grandeur, so high uplifted into the bright 
sky, was breathed a charm of freshness, remoteness, 
repose altogether indescribable. Isabel drew in a 
deep breath of the marvellous air ; while she opened 
her arms as if she longed to fly away, out over the 
trackless wilds, the towering heights, the hang- 
ing woods and falling waters, straight into the daz- 
zling glories of the golden and rose-red western 
heaven. 

“Oh, for the wings of a dove !” she sighed. 

If Lloyd remembered how he had once prophesied 
to her that she would wish for those wings, he 
did not say so. He only smiled at her delight. 

“Be satisfied,” he said. “You send your imagi- 
nation like a bird to gather in all the beauty you do 
not see.” 

“But there is so much that I shall never see !” she 
replied, — and then she laughed. “How foolish I 
am,” she said, “when what I have seen and do see 
is too much for me to take in ! And now I suppose 
we must go on ?” 

“Yes, and ride fast.” 


A Ride in the Greenwood. 271 

Which proved to be possible ; for now the trail led 
them over a plateau, level and open as a royal park, 
though covered with superb forest, where the great 
pines and evergreen oaks rose in columned stateli- 
ness to immense height, their interlacing boughs 
forming overhead a canopy of foliage through which 
the faintest wandering breeze woke a murmur like 
the voice of the sea. And as they rode, fast as their 
animals could be urged to go, down these enchant- 
ing vistas, with the breeze which fanned their faces 
bringing to them all the wild fragrances of hundreds 
of leagues of mighty woods, the delight of motion 
added to the delights of sight and sound and scent 
seemed to make life for the moment a thing of 
simple rapture. 

And then the trail carried them along mountain 
crests, where the wooded steeps fell sharply away 
toward a lower world of glorious blues and pur- 
ples, which gleamed and glowed between the straight 
stems of the giant trees and through their crowns 
of verdure; or it skirted the tops of foaming tor- 
rents, which flung their waters over tremendous 
precipices into green abysses far below, or led them 
through glades of sylvan beauty deep between bold 
hills. But through whatever scenes it passed, there 
was ever about the way that sea-like murmur of un- 
numbered leaves, together with the music of swift- 
ly flowing streams; while the earth breathed forth 
perfume like a censer, and the sweet air was like 
a sensible benediction from the radiant, bending sky. 


272 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


And as they rode, day melted into night so soft- 
ly that it was difficult to tell where one ended and the 
other began. But the last tint of sunset color had 
faded, and the moon was flinging her fairy light 
over their way and marking it with delicate shadows, 
when they finally overtook Mr. Rivers and his party 
in a stream-fed glen, where a halt had been made 
as if for camping. But none of the usual cheerful 
preparations for the night were in progress. In- 
deed, Mr. Rivers was in the saddle, with the in- 
tention, he explained, of returning to the Quebrada 
Onda, when his daughter rode up. The relief with 
which he greeted her was very great, and the ex- 
pression of his thanks to Lloyd left nothing to be 
desired in the way of cordiality; but after this it 
was natural that there should be some expression 
of the irritation which had mingled with his anxiety. 

“I have had scouts after you in all directions,” 
he said to his daughter; “and when it became clear 
that you were not ahead, there seemed nothing to 
do but to go back to that infernal quebrada. It was 
so clearly impossible that we could have passed you 
under ordinary circumstances, that I was forced 
to think you must have met with some serious ac- 
cident.” 

“I am very sorry to have caused you so much 
anxiety,” Isabel murmured regretfully. 

“I’ve had a pretty uncomfortable afternoon, I 
assure you,” her father returned; “and have quite 


A Ride in the Greenwood. 273 

determined to keep you under my own eye in fu- 
ture.” 

“If you had kept me under your own eye, I 
should have been as thoroughly drenched as you no 
doubt were in the storm,” Isabel said; “whereas, 
thanks to having met Mr. Lloyd, I had the pleasure 
of watching it from the shelter of a delightful cave.” 

“Hum !” said Mr. Rivers. “It was very lucky for 
you that you met Lloyd, and keeping dry was high- 
ly desirable; but as for finding pleasure in that 
downpour, in a cave or elsewhere — I can only say 
that I was extremely far from doing so; having 
been not only drenched, as you observe, but har- 
rassed with apprehension about you. Well, I’ll take 
care that you don’t wander out of sight any more. 
Now, men” (peremptorily in Spanish), “go to work 
and make the camp.” 

A little later, when this labor was over — the tent 
pitched, the fire made and supper prepared, — Mr. 
Rivers’ mood underwent a change. Irritation was 
forgotten in the pleasant relaxation and sense of 
comfort which is nowhere to be experienced in quite 
such degree as in a camp in the greenwood after a 
day of hard riding. There was only light talk, 
pleasant laughter and jesting as they gathered 
around the fire, which threw its rich radiance over 
the rocky escarpment of the hillside overhanging 
the camp, over masses of foliage and the figures 
of men and animals. The stream near by chanted 
the sweetest possible song as it hurried over its 


274 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

stones; and all the fragrant, pungent odors which 
night and recent rain draw forth in the forest filled 
the air, mingling with the aroma of the delightful 
Mexican berry from the coffee-pot placed on some 
red embers at the edge of the fire. 

With appetites agreeably sharpened by the keen 
air, and spirits filled with the charm of this delight- 
ful gypsying, they feasted well on the varied con- 
tents of Lucio’s well-stocked provision chest; and 
then came an hour or so of smoking on the part 
of the men, and more pleasant talk on the part of 
all ; while Isabel reclined on a bright-colored blanket, 
and the firelight played over her sunny hair and lit 
up the smiling loveliness of her lips and eyes, frank 
as those of a thoroughbred boy, charming as those 
of a nymph. And then it was that that other camp- 
fire down in the depths of the Quebrada Onda was 
remembered and mentioned. Mr. Rivers looked 
grave when he heard of the revelations of the opera- 
glasses. 

“I don’t like this at all,” he said. “Nothing could 
possibly be more awkward, more undesirable in 
every way, than that we should be the guests of 
Dona Beatriz Calderon when her mine is attacked by 
Americans.” 

“I can’t believe that anything of the kind is pos- 
sible,” remarked Isabel. “Mr. Armistead promised 
me that no attempt to take the mine should be made 
while I am at Las Joyas ; and I think” — she glanced 
at her father appealingly — “that Mr. Armistead is 
a gentleman.” 


A Ride: in the: Greenwood. 275 

“Oh, yes, undoubtedly a gentleman !” Mr. Rivers 
replied hastily. “But — er — even gentlemen permit 
themselves to do strange things occasionally. If 
Manuel really recognized those men, and if that 
fellow Randolph is with them, it looks — well, 
it looks very much as if we had better turn 
around to-morrow morning and go back to Topia; 
for I have no intention of being mixed up, direct- 
ly or indirectly, in this affair of the Santa Cruz.” 

“Papa, I can’t — I really can’t go back to Topia !” 
Isabel declared. “If Mr. Armistead has been guilty 
of such treachery, I — want to stay and help to fight 
him.” 

“That is exactly what can’t be permitted, my 
dear,” her father answered. “I am afraid I was 
very wrong to yield to your desire of coming out 
here at all just now. But you see” — he looked at 
Lloyd — “I wasn’t altogether sorry to show in this 
way my sincere respect for and sympathy with 
Dona Beatriz.” 

“Dona Beatriz deserves all the respect and sym- 
pathy which can possibly be shown to her,” said 
Lloyd; “and, if you will allow me to offer advice, 
I think you should permit Miss Rivers to continue 
on her way to Las Joyas. Her visit there is expected 
and will be deeply appreciated.” 

“But if these men behind us are going to seize 
the mine?” 

“They will not seize it. Of that I assure you. 
An attempt to do so will only result in injury to 


276 A Daughter of the: Sifrra. 

themselves. But, like Miss Rivers, I find it difficult 
to believe that even an attempt is to be made now. 
Armistead, within certain limitations, is a gentle- 
man, and he would not violate his own word so flag- 
rantly.” 

“What can those fellows be after, then?” 

“That I am going back to see as soon as my 
horse has finished feeding. It is a beautiful night 
for riding.” 

“But not for going down into the Quebrada 
Onda, — no night is beautiful enough for that. Wait 
until morning.” 

“No; for then they will be on the road, and I 
want to get them in camp. That is the place to find 
out things.” 

“And if you find that they are going to the Santa 
Cruz?” 

“Then I may be able to offer Randolph some ad- 
vice which will induce him to turn back.” 

Mr. Rivers glanced a little curiously at the quiet 
face on which the firelight shone. 

“Do you know the man?” he asked. 

“I think I do,” Lloyd answered slowly. Then, 
perhaps to escape further questioning, he rose to his 
feet. At the same moment Miss Rivers rose also. 

“This is charming!” she said. “But I am suf- 
ficiently tired to find my thoughts turning to the 
sleep awaiting me in my tent.” 

“Pleasant dreams,” said Lloyd, stepping over 
to her with a smile. He held out his hand. “Good- 
night and— good-bye !” 


A Ride in the Greenwood. 


277 


“Do you really wish me to have pleasant dreams ?” 
she asked, looking up into his face as she laid her 
hand in his. 

“Can you doubt it ?” he asked, with some surprise. 

“Then don’t go down into that quebrada to- 
night,” she said; “else I shall certainly dream of 
you as falling down some terrible abyss from that 
fearful trail.” 

“Do you think it a habit of mine to fall over preci- 
pices?” 

“No, no; but to go down — over that way we came 
up — at night! The mere thought of it makes me 
shudder. If you want me either to sleep or dream 
well, please promise that you will not do it.” 

“Very well, then, — I promise that I will wait for 
daylight to make the descent. But that means that 
I shall leave here considerably before daylight. So 
— adios!” 

She did not echo the beautiful word; but, look- 
ing at him with a smile which had in it something 
a little mischievous, she answered, “Hasta luego!” 
and then vanished into her tent. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


“no man is stronger THAN TAT£.” 

^PHE moon had gone down, but there was not 
a as yet even a flush of color in the east when 
Lloyd mounted his horse and rode away from the 
Rivers’ camp. Starlight in abundance there was, — 
the brilliant starlight of this high region; but the 
forest-shaded way was, nevertheless, dark as he 
rode alone over the trail where a few hours before 
he and Isabel had ridden together so fleetly and so 
gaily. But he had the true woodsman’s eye and in- 
stinct; so, despite the deep shadows which lurked 
under the great trees, he had not wandered from 
his way when suddenly there was a stirring, sighing 
movement in the wide sea of verdure overhead, as 
a light breeze swept through it, and simultaneously 
a lightening through all the mysterious forest 
spaces, showing that day was at hand. 

Nothing can be conceived more beautiful than 
morning in the Sierra. Toward daylight the air 
grows quite cold; and when the sun rises, his bril- 
liant rays flash over a myriad diamonds of hoar- 
frost, gemming every blade of grass; and there is 
a thin rim of ice on any water which has been 
standing over night. The atmosphere has a sharp 
278 


No Man is Stronger Than Fate. 279 

edge; but its divine, ozone-laden quality gives to 
mind and body a sense of almost incredible buoy- 
ancy and energy. Nor does the chill last long. The 
sun has hardly appeared above the pine-crested 
heights when the lovely frost has vanished, and 
grass, ferns, vines, leaves — the whole green, won- 
derful world is simply drenched in crystalline fresh- 
ness. And then what exquisite mists rise in deli- 
cate, filmy wreaths and sprays out of the deep 
gorges, trailing their gossamer whiteness over the 
great, forest-clad shoulders of the hills, or lying as 
a crown upon the brows of the tall peaks ! There is 
a stir of life in all the dewy forest coverts, where 
the gentle creatures in fur and feathers dwell. They 
are all rousing — the deer from their fragrant beds 
of fern ; those gay wood-sprites, the squirrels, from 
their chambers in the giant arms of great trees; 
the birds in their leafy perches. For day has come — 
another long, beautiful, golden day in the fair, wild 
greenwood. 

All this radiance was about Lloyd as he rode down 
into the Quebrada Onda, reaching the river in time 
to see the camp on the farther side just stirring. The 
stream had by this time fallen, so that it was easily 
forded; and he experienced no difficulty in riding 
across, with a glance toward a rock in mid-current 
where yesterday — was it only yesterday or some 
long age ago? — a figure light and graceful as that of 
nymph or dryad had stood. 


280 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

The men who were saddling their mules around 
the camp-fire on the knoll looked with some surprise 
at the solitary man — a senor, a gringo, and yet en- 
tirely unattended in these Sierra wilds — who rode 
up to them. 

“Buenos dias, hombres!” he said. 

“Buenos dias , senor!” they answered. 

And then one, turning quickly around, uttered an 
exclamation. 

“Don Felipe!” he cried. “Come estd Vd. } senor?” 

“Ah, Luis!” said Lloyd, recognizing a man who 
had more than once been in his employ. “How are 
you, and what are you doing now ?” 

“Very little, senor,” the man replied. “At present 
I am with the senor Americano yonder” — he waved 
his hand toward the fire where a man sat taking 
his breakfast, — “who is prospecting for mines in the 
Sierra.” 

“Prospecting, eh?” said Lloyd. He smiled. “I 
will go and speak to the senor Americano,” he said. 

Dismounting, he walked over to the fire and 
paused before the American, who, with an expres- 
sion of surprise, looked up at him. 

“How do you do, Randolph?” he said coolly. 
“This is rather unexpected, meeting you here.” 

“Lloyd !” Randolph exclaimed. Involuntarily he 
rose to his feet, but neither man offered to shake 
hands with the other. They stood for an instant 
silently, with the dying embers of the fire between 
them; each noting the changes wrought by time, 


No Man is Stronger Than Fate. 281 


the ravages wrought by life in the face of the other. 
Then Randolph went on, a little hoarsely : “I heard 
that you were out in the Sierra somewhere.” 

“From Armistead, I suppose?” Floyd answered, 
still coolly. “I have heard that you are doing his 
work.” He sat down on a log near by. “May I ask 
for a cup of coffee?” he added. “Fve been riding for 
several hours.” 

Randolph nodded to one of the Mexicans, who 
brought coffee and also some broiled meat and 
bread. 

“You needn’t hesitate on the score of bread and 
salt,” he said, as he resumed his own seat. “These 
are Armistead’s provisions, not mine.” 

“So I supposed; and, as you perceive, I am not 
hesitating,” Lloyd returned. 

But he ate absently and with little appetite, only 
drinking eagerly the strong black coffee, the stimu- 
lating effect of which he felt immediately. It was 
after he had drained his cup that he looked again 
at Randolph, who had meanwhile continued his own 
breakfast. 

“Are you going to the Santa Cruz by Armistead’s 
orders?” he asked abruptly. 

“Why should you think that I am going to the 
Santa Cruz at all ?” Randolph asked in turn. 

“That question hardly calls for an answer,” Lloyd 
rejoined. “I know Armistead’s plans and intentions 
very thoroughly — you’ve probably heard that I came 
out from California with him, and we only parted 


282 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

company when I refused the job you have under- 
taken, — so there’s no good in trying to maintain a 
mystery with me. Prospecting will do with the men, 
but I know perfectly well where you are bound. 
What puzzles me is that Ar mi stead should be mak- 
ing this move just now.” 

“Why is not now as good a time as any — grant- 
ing that you are right?” Randolph asked. 

“Well, for one reason, because Miss Rivers has 
gone to Las Joyas,” Lloyd answered; “and I hap- 
pen to know that Armistead gave her a promise that 
no attempt against the Santa Cruz should be made 
while she was there.” 

“How do you happen to know that he made such 
a promise?” 

“That is an unimportant detail. The promise was 
undoubtedly given; and, unless I am much mis- 
taken in Armistead, he would not wish to break it.” 

“Then he should have changed his orders. I have 
a letter from him in my pocket telling me to — er — 
carry out our plans about the prospects in the Sierra 
as soon as I was ready. So I am on my way to 
carry them out, and I have nothing whatever to do 
with any promise he may or may not have made to 
Miss Rivers.” 

Lloyd’s glance swept comprehensively over the 
group of men near by before he answered. There 
were about a dozen, — well-picked men for the pur- 
pose in view : sinewy, vigorous sons of the Sierra ; 
belonging to the class which drifts from mining 


No Man is Stronger Than Fate. 283 

camp to mining camp, possessing few ties and fewer 
scruples, and from which what may be called the 
desperate class of the country is recruited. Well 
mounted and well armed, they formed a very effec- 
tive corps for such work as Randolph had in hand ; 
and, recognizing this, Lloyd nodded with a certain 
air of approval. 

“You have done exceedingly well in getting up 
your party,” he said. “You have secured exactly 
the right material for such an enterprise. But to 
take the Santa Cruz you would need to multiply 
them by five, if not by ten.” 

Randolph stared. 

“You seem to know a wonderful deal about it,” 
he said. 

“I was at the Santa Cruz not many days ago,” 
Lloyd answered ; “and I am able to assure you that 
they are not only expecting some step of this kind 
on the part of Mr. Trafford’s agent, but are pre- 
pared to resist it. They have five— ten — well-armed 
men where you have one ; and anybody who knows 
the mine will tell that if defended, it is im- 
pregnable.” 

Randolph, looking a little startled, now dropped 
all pretence of mystery. 

“Armistead has been expecting to surprise the 
mine,” he said. “He hasn’t counted on resistance.” 

“If you are wise, you will count on it,” returned 
Lloyd, grimly. “If ever men were in earnest and 
determined to defend their property, those men at 


284 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

the Santa Cruz are. Of course” — he rose to his feet 
— “you can give just what weight you please to this 
information. It is not intended as a friendly warn- 
ing at all; for, frankly, I don’t care in the least 
whether you and your men — precious scoundrels the 
most of them — are shot down like dogs or not. I 
have simply told you the state of affairs; and if you 
think you would please Armistead by making a trag- 
ical fiasco of his plan to surprise the mine, you 
have only to go on. Good-day !” 

He strode away to his horse, which Luis was 
holding at a little distance; but before he was in 
his saddle Randolph was at his side. 

“See here, Lloyd,” he said, in a voice a little 
shaken with anxiety, “you may not have meant your 
information for a friendly warning ; but all the same 
it is friendly, you know, — if things are as you have 
stated.” 

“You can believe my statement or not, as you 
like,” Lloyd answered with curt impatience. “It 
hasn’t been for your sake that I have warned you — ” 

“Oh, I know that well enough !” the other inter- 
posed. 

“And you may remember sufficient about me to 
judge whether or not I am likely to make state- 
ments which are untrue.” 

“I remember,” Randolph said. “There isn’t any 
room to doubt your truthfulness. So it comes to 
this : if I go on, I’ll be leading a forlorn hope, with- 
out the least chance of success.” 


No Man is Stronger Than Fate. 285 

“Just that,” said Lloyd, tightening his girths a 
little. 

“And I’ll be hanged if I care to lead forlorn 
hopes for the benefit of Trafford, who is sitting at 
ease in San Francisco with more money already than 
he can count. I shall go back to Canelas and com- 
municate with Armistead. If he chooses to increase 
his force and to lead it himself, I’ve no objection to 
accompanying him; but I won’t take the responsi- 
bility alone.” 

“A sensible as well as a prudent resolution,” com- 
mented Lloyd, springing into his saddle. “You may 
be quite sure that you could not take the Santa Cruz 
with five hundred men; though if Armistead has a 
mind to try, that is his affair. But, as you’ve ob- 
served, there is no apparent reason why you should 
risk your life in his and Trafford’s interest.” 

“Not the least,” Randolph agreed ; “although it is 
a life pretty well without value,” he added, a little 
bitterly. 

Lloyd gave him a quick, keen glance. 

“You don’t look as if you had been making it 
very valuable of late,” he observed dryly. 

“I’ve been going to the dogs as fast as a man 
could go,” Randolph said. “And I don’t mean to 
put the blame of my transgressions altogether on 
other shoulders, but — ” 

“Best keep it on your own,” Lloyd interrupted 
sternly. “After all, nothing — nobody — can drag a 
man down without the consent of his own will.” 


286 A Daughter oe the: Sierra. 

Randolph laid his hand on the neck of the horse 
and looked up into the sternly-set face above him, 
with its resolute mouth and jaw. There was some- 
thing wistful in the gaze, which kept Lloyd from 
abruptly riding on. He could not disregard the 
mute appeal in those eyes, which contained also a 
confession of weakness and pain. 

“That’s easy for you, perhaps,” said Randolph. 
“Nothing — nobody — could drag you down into the 
depths where I’ve been. But, unless I’m mistaken, 
you have been into some depths of your own; and 
if you’ve learned there anything that will help a 
man in a fight with misery and loneliness and self- 
disgust, and — and all the forces of hell, I’d like to 
know it.” 

There was a moment’s pause. It was a strange 
appeal, considering the past relations of these men, 
considering all that stood between them and made 
friendship in the ordinary conventional sense impos- 
sible. But conventional things — codes, injuries, 
feeling — all seemed far away in this world where 
they had met ; this virgin world of God, where only 
elemental things have a place, — the great elemental 
passions and hopes of man, which can raise him so 
high or cast him so low ; and the great verities of 
life and death, of time and of eternity. These things 
abide in the Sierra; and here, as it were uncon- 
sciously, Lloyd had meditated upon them until they 
sank into his heart ; taught him something, at least, 
of their divine wisdom ; prepared him somewhat to 


No Man is Stronger Than Fate. 287 


answer this strange appeal of one human soul to 
another, — this cry for help uttered out of the dark 
depths to one who was at least a brother in suf- 
fering, but who while suffering had wrested from 
pain its noble secret of strength. 

These thoughts passed through his mind swiftly, 
together with a revelation — dim but convincing — 
of a purpose which had led him here quite different 
from any purpose which he had conceived. 
“Kismet!” he had said the day before when he met 
Isabel Rivers in the quebrada, and again when the 
storm had imprisoned them in the cave within the 
cliff; but now, as by a flash of apprehension, he 
seemed to see what that fate had been preparing for 
him. Only this — only an appeal to which he felt 
that he dared not close his ears ; only a cry for help 
from a man who in a certain sense had injured him, 
and whose claim, therefore, upon him, according to 
that divine code which all men recognize to be di- 
vine because so difficult, was not to be disregarded. 

“If you have decided to turn back,” he said, after 
a pause which seemed to him long but was in reality 
very short, “you might as well come along with 
me. Our way is probably the same.” 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


AT L,OS CHARCOS. 

[VI OT far from the casa grande of Las Joyas 
1 ~ there was a spot near the base of the hills which 
surrounded the beautiful valley, known as Los 
Charcos (the pools), because here the stream from 
the canon of the Santa Cruz fell into a succession of 
rocky basins, and lay, or seemed to lie, in each, 
motionless as a mirror, fern-fringed, tree-arched, 
giving back with clear faithfulness the over-shadow- 
ing greenery and the glimpses of jew el -like sky 
above. 

The lovely place had enchanted Miss Rivers when 
she was first led to it by Victoria; and nothing 
pleased her so much as to go there afterward — 
often alone, — and, while she sat or lay in the deep 
green shade by the side of the mirroring water, 
let the marvellous beauty of Nature sink into her 
soul and fill it as the chalice of a flower is filled with 
dew. Many thoughts came to her in these hours, 
when the flowing tide of time seemed, like that of the 
stream beside her, to stand still; when nothing 
broke the wonderful greenwood stillness, and only, 
the shifting of the shadows showed that the round 
earth was swinging on its tireless way, and that 
288 


At Los Charcos. 289 

after a while another golden day would go down 
to death. 

“Oh, it is so perfect! — so perfect! — why must 
it end? — why can it not last?” she exclaimed one 
day, more to herself than to Victoria, although the 
latter was seated beside her on the grassy bank. She 
threw herself back as she spoke, clasping her hands 
behind her head and looking upward at the canopy 
of verdure over them and the dazzling heaven be- 
yond. “One becomes an absolute pagan,” she said 
with a little sigh. “One wants to pour out a libation 
to the spirit of the woods or do something of the 
sort.” Then she laughed ; for she had been speak- 
ing English, and Victoria looked puzzled. “It is as 
well that you have not understood me,” she said in 
Spanish; “for I have been talking like a pagan. 
Now, one can not express pagan sentiments in Span- 
ish. It is impossible.” 

“Why is it impossible?” Victoria asked; for she 
had often difficulty in following the thoughts of her 
companion, — a girl like herself, and yet with so 
wide a gulf of difference between them that there 
were times when each found it very hard to compre- 
hend the other. 

“Because Spanish is in its genius such a religious 
language, so stately, so noble, so made to be a 
vehicle for the great thoughts of great saints about 
eternal truth,” Isabel answered. “One simply can’t 
be frivolous in Spanish, and of course playing at 
paganism is being very frivolous.” 


290 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


“I don’t think that you are ever frivolous,” said 
Victoria. 

“Oh, yes, I am — distressingly so sometimes!” 
Miss Rivers replied. “But frivolity apart, I can not 
tell you how glad I am to have come out into this 
wonderful, beautiful — incredibly beautiful — Sierra 
world of yours. I am so grateful to you for asking 
me to come.” 

“I did not think that you would care about it,” 
said Victoria. “It is so wild, so lonely here. But 
the Senor Lloyd assured me that you would like to 
come.” 

“The Senor Lloyd knew,” said Isabel, smiling, as 
if to herself. “He knows a great deal, the Senor 
Lloyd,” she added. “He is a very sympathetic per- 
son : he understands more than one expresses some- 
times.” 

“Yes,” Victoria assented, “he is very sympa- 
thetic.” She was silent for a moment before she 
went on. “I never thought that there were any 
gringos like him,” she said. 

“There are not a great many,” Isabel answered. 
“I have never met any one quite like him. He gives 
you the impression of being so — detached, as it 
were; so free from thought of or care for himself, 
and yet so full of consideration for others.” 

“He is very unhappy,” said Victoria, simply. 

Miss Rivers sat up quickly and stared at her. 

“Now, how did you find that out?” she asked. 


At Los Charcos. 


291 


The dark eyes met her own quietly and directly. 

“Is it not plain?” the girl asked. “Have you not 
known it?” 

“I have felt it — guessed it, perhaps,” the other 
answered; “but I can not say that I have known it. 
He does not wear his heart on his sleeve, the Senor 
Lloyd — which means, you know, that he does not 
talk of himself and his troubles, or ‘pose,’ as we 
say in English, as one whom life has disappointed. 
And yet it has disappointed him, deeply, enduringly. 
One is sure of that. One is also sure that there is no 
remedy for his trouble, except a certain divine rem- 
edy which he has never found.” 

“You mean—?” 

“I mean, of course, divine faith and the healing 
that it has for all human wounds, the answer for 
all human perplexities.” 

“I know,” said Victoria, regretfully, “that he is 
a heretic.” 

“Not a heretic in the old sense,” answered Isabel. 
“He is more of a pagan — a modern pagan.” 

“As you called yourself a minute ago?” 

“Oh, no, no! I was playing at being an ancient 
pagan — a joyous worshiper of Nature, as we fancy 
those to have been to whom God was never directly 
revealed. Modern pagans are altogether different. 
They have forgotten God and His revelation, and 
their creed is a very joyless one of pure materialism. 
Some of them — like Mr. Lloyd — cling to high ideals 
of truth and honor and duty ; but they see no mean- 


292 A Daughter or thr Sirrra. 

ing or purpose in the sufferings of life, and it 
hardens and embitters them.” 

“I do not think that he is hardened and embit- 
tered/’ said Victoria, slowly. “But he is hopeless, 
and that is worse.” 

Miss Rivers looked at the speaker meditatively for 
a moment before she answered. 

“It is a little strange,” she said at last, “how 
you have found all this out.” 

“No, it is not strange,” the girl answered simply. 
“When one cares for a person, one can tell very 
easily how things are with — him,” 

Miss Rivers gave a little gasp. Surely this was 
unexpected frankness! She had suspected some- 
thing of the kind — had not been unwilling to probe a 
little, — but such an avowal was as far as possible 
from what she had anticipated. For a moment she 
did not answer. Then she said: 

“And you — care for him ?” 

“Very much,” Victoria answered with the same 
simplicity. “He is dear to me,” she went on in the 
beautiful Spanish which English words so inade- 
quately render, “not only because he has been a 
friend and done us a great service to prove his 
friendship, but because he is himself — so sympa- 
thetic, as you have said, so full of understanding 
for the ways and thoughts of others, so kind and 
gentle, so much of a true Caballero in all things, even 
though he is a gringo.” 


At Los Charcos. 


293 


“Yes, he is all of that,” said Isabel Rivers, in a 
low tone. To herself she was wondering at the 
clear vision of this Mexican girl, as well as at her 
frankness. “A true caballero in all things,” — yes, 
surely he was that, the man with whom she had sat 
in the cave of the Quebrada Onda and ridden in an 
ecstacy of delight through the greenwood. Yet re- 
membering him as she had known him, so unlike 
other men in his manner, but with a look in his 
eyes which now and again had made the spoken 
admiration of other men seem poor, her next words 
rose impetuously to her lips. “Does he care — like 
this — for you?” she asked. 

“Like this?” Victoria returned, still quietly. “Do 
you mean as I care for him? No; why should he?” 

“Why should he not?” an astonished voice mur- 
mured. 

“There are many reasons,” the girl answered. 
‘‘He has done much for me, but what have I done 
for him ?” 

“He says that you rescued him from the canon 
of the Santa Cruz and so saved his life.” 

Victoria made a contemptuous gesture. 

“That was nothing. I would have done that for 
any one,” she said. “And, then, what am I but a 
girl of the Sierra — ignorant, unattractive, dis- 
owned ?” 

“Victoria, you shall not speak so of yourself! 
You know — or if you don’t know I will tell you — 
that you are wonderfully attractive; that you have 


294 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

the beauty and the freshness and the charm of your 
glorious Sierra; that you are a woman to whom 
any man might lose his heart.” 

The beautiful dark eyes looked at the speaker very 
softly. 

“You are good to tell me these things, senorita,” 
Victoria said half gently, half proudly. “But even 
if they are true, it would make no difference; for 
the Senor Lloyd has given his heart to you.” 

“Victoria!” 

“Surely you know it.” 

“I don’t know it. You are mistaken — entirely 
mistaken.” 

Victoria shook her head. 

“I am not mistaken,” she said, with the same 
quietness which had characterized her other utter- 
ances. “I spoke of it once to him ; and although he 
denied, I saw, I felt — oh, it was very plain! And 
then he talked — but it was enough to break one’s 
heart the way in which he talked. He said that such 
a feeling as that of which I spoke had no place in 
his life; that love and happiness were not for him; 
that he had lost all right to them and had left them 
far behind him. He said that something had hap- 
pened to him — he did not tell me what it was — which 
had made him an exile from his home for years and 
rendered it impossible for him ever to make another ; 
so that he had wandered for years, a lonely and 
unhappy man, until he came to the Sierra, and the 
Sierra gave him peace.” 


At Los Charcos. 


2 95 


“Ah, poor soul!” said Isabel Rivers, understand- 
ing, by a flasn of intuition, what manner of peace 
it was of which he spoke. 

“But as he talked,” Victoria went on, “I could 
see — I could tell — that he felt more than he would 
own for you, and that you alone could help him. 
So I determined to tell you when you came.” 

“But you — ” Isabel began, wonderingly. 

“I have no power to help him,” the other inter- 
posed quickly. “You must not misunderstand what 
I have said. He is dear to me — very dear ; but it is 
as an amigo , — a friend you call it. He could never 
— not even if he cared for me as he does not care — 
be anything else to me; for I could never unite my 
life with that of a gringo — ” 

“You have just said that Mr. Lloyd is not like 
a gringo,” Isabel reminded her. 

“It is true that he is not like one,” Victoria re- 
plied; “but he is one. And so between him and me 
there is something which can not be crossed, and 
that something is my mother’s heart. It would 
break her heart if I — followed in her footsteps; for 
that is how it would seem to her. I have found 
out that she has been miserable, fearing this; and 
I have promised — nay, I have sworn before the holy 
altar — that I will never marry a gringo.” 

“Victoria, that was wrong! You had no right to 
swear such a thing.” 

“Had I not a right to consider my mother before 
anything else on earth?” Victoria asked. “Think 


296 


A Daughter of the: Sie:rra. 


for a moment, senorita ! I am all that she has, — all. 
It would be hard upon her if God were to call me 
out of the world, would it not? But to that she 
could resign herself : she could pray, she would know 
that I was safe until we should meet again. But if 
she saw me marry a man of the race of the man she 
married, I believe that she would die of grief; for 
nothing could make her believe that I was not 
destined to suffer all that she has suffered.” 

“If she knew Mr. Lloyd — ” Isabel began. 

“She knows him,” Victoria interrupted, “and she 
likes him. Oh, yes, she likes him and she is grate- 
ful to him ! But she remembers that once she liked 
and trusted another, and — and she trembles and 
grows pale over the thought that I might trust as she 
did. It was not enough to tell her that the Senor 
Lloyd has no thought of me. So I have promised — I 
have sworn — that I will marry no gringo; and it is 
a promise, senorita, that I shall never even be 
tempted to break.” 

Silence followed the last significant words, — a 
silence in which Isabel heard the soft murmur of the 
leaves overhead and the crystalline song of the 
stream as it flowed away from the sleeping pools, 
but which seemed to give her no hint or whisper 
of anything which it was possible to say to this 
girl who was bearing the burden of mistakes and 
wrongs in which she had no part. At length Miss 
Rivers simply uttered the thought which filled her 
mind to the exclusion of all others. 


At Los Charcos. 


297 


“You are very brave and very noble, Victoria, — 
strong and beautiful as your own mountains,” she 
said. 

“Senorita!” — the dark eyes suddenly swimming 
in tears met her own. “You are very good, — I felt 
from the first that you were good,” the girl said pas- 
sionately. “And you will help the Senor Lloyd, will 
you not?” 

Touched more deeply than it is easy to express, 
Isabel leaned forward and laid her hand on the 
slender, sunburned hand near by. 

“My dear,” she said gently, “I have no power to 
help Mr. Lloyd—” 

“Oh, you have — you have!” Victoria interposed. 

“But if I had power,” Isabel went on hastily, “I 
have no opportunity. It is likely that I shall never 
see him again — ” 

She paused suddenly, the words arrested on her 
lips, while she gazed out from the shadowy green- 
ness of their retreat to the plain, across which a 
horseman was riding. Even at this distance it was 
clear that he was not a Mexican. 

“Who is that ?” she asked, attracting her compan- 
ion’s attention to the figure. “Is it — Mr. Lloyd?” 

Turning her head quickly, Victoria looked in the 
direction indicated, her eyes narrowing in the inten- 
sity of their gaze for an instant ; then she rose to her 
feet, frowning, superb. 

“It is not Mr. Lloyd,” she said. “It is the other — 
the Americano named Armistead.” 


CHAPTER XXV. 


A R2QU£ST for consolation. 

\ / ICTORIA’S keen glance was not at fault. It 
* was indeed Armistead who rode up and dis- 
mounted in the green shade by the sparkling pools. 

“I was told at the house that I should find you 
here,” he said in English to Miss Rivers, after a 
bow which included both girls; “so I have taken 
the liberty of coming to seek you. I hope” — he had 
glanced at her face — “that I have not presumed too 
far—” 

“Frankly, I think that you have,” Isabel replied, 
with a coldness of manner he had never known her 
display before. “As a guest at Ras Joyas, I have 
neither the right nor the desire to receive as a visitor 
one who is held here as an enemy. It is asking too 
much, even of Mexican hospitality.” 

“It did not occur to me that you would regard 
my visit in that light,” he said, a little disconcerted. 
“I did not think of the people of the place — I only 
thought of seeing you.” 

“The people of the place, however, demand con- 
sideration from me, if not from you,” Isabel an- 
swered. “I must immediately apologize to Doha 
Victoria for this — intrusion.” 


298 


A Request eor Consolation. 299 

She turned to Victoria as she spoke, and said a 
few words in Spanish. Even Armistead was struck 
by the dignity and grace with which the Mexican 
girl replied : 

“If he has come to see you, senorita, assure him 
he is welcome. Our house is yours, and it is for 
you to bring whom you will into it.” 

“I have not brought this visitor, and I have not 
the least desire to bring him,” Isabel answered, 
“but since he has come, I suppose that I must hear 
what he has to say.” 

“You will return with him to the casa grande, will 
you not?” 

“No. I can not take him under your mother’s 
roof. I will talk to him here.” 

“I am sure that my mother would prefer your 
taking him to the house,” Victoria urged. 

Isabel looked at Armistead. 

“Doha Victoria begs me to return with you to 
the casa grande,” she said ; “but I have told her that 
I prefer to talk with you here.” 

“I also much prefer it,” he replied. Then, address- 
ing Victoria in somewhat stumbling Spanish, he 
expressed his apologies. “Since I was passing 
through the hacienda, on my way to Durango, I 
have ventured to call to see Miss Rivers ; but I shall 
not delay very long.” 

“As the guest of Miss Rivers, you are welcome 
to Las Joyas, senor,” Victoria said. “I have just 
asked her to invite you to the house.” 


300 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

“Many thanks !” he answered. “But I will not 
trespass on your hospitality. I can very well pay 
my visit in this charming spot.” 

“Then I will leave you,” Victoria said to Isabel; 
and, with a slight bow to Armistead, she walked 
away up the side of the stream. 

As she left them, Miss Rivers regarded her unbid- 
den visitor with anything but an encouraging expres- 
sion. 

“I dislike to seem rude,” she said, “but I can not 
imagine any reason which could justify your placing 
me in this position.” 

“The reason is very simple. It is merely that I 
felt I must see you.” 

The young lady’s air became if possible yet more 
distant. 

“You are very flattering,” she said; “but again I 
must confess that I fail to see any reason — ” 

“But if / see ?” he interrupted. “And possibly you 
will see, too, when I tell you that I am leaving the 
Sierra without any intention of returning.” 

“You are leaving!” There was no doubt that 
he had wakened interest now. Surprise, inquiry, 
and something very like sincere pleasure were in 
Miss Rivers’ eyes as she gazed at him. “Does this 
mean that you have abandoned the attempt to claim 
the Santa Cruz?” she asked eagerly. 

Armistead shrugged his shoulders. 

“Shall we sit down?” he said, as he threw the 
bridle of his horse over the bough of a tree. “Not- 


A Request eor Consolation. 301 

withstanding the unfriendly reception you have 
given me, I have much to tell you/’ 

“I did not intend to be unfriendly,” she said 
somewhat apologetically, as she sat down again 
on the grassy bank from which she had risen at his 
approach, and he threw himself down beside her. 
“But you must understand why it is that, consider- 
ing the position in which you stand, or have stood, 
toward the owner of Las Joyas, I do not think you 
should have come to see me here.” 

“I understand perfectly your consideration for 
the owner of Las Joyas,” he answered; “and it is 
because I understand it that I am glad to tell you 
I have withdrawn from a position which you regard 
as that of her enemy.” 

“Then you are really abandoning the claim 
against the Santa Cruz?” 

“It does not rest with me to abandon it, but there 
is at least to be a lull in immediate proceedings. 
Having learned that the mine is too well defended 
to make a surprise practicable, I wired Mr. Trafford 
that I do not care to make an attempt which could 
not succeed.” 

“And he—?” 

“He has replied that in such case we can only 
await the result of the legal proceedings which have 
been instituted. This relieves me of duty here, 
so I am preparing to leave the country with the 
sense of having for the first time in my life failed 
in an object which I set out to accomplish.” 


302 


A Daughter of the: Sie;rra. 


The distinct appeal for sympathy in the last words 
met with no response from Miss Rivers. There was 
no doubt now of the pleasure that shone in her eyes 
and curved her lips into smiles. 

“There are occasions on which it is better to fail 
than to succeed,” she said. “You are to be congrat- 
ulated on this failure.” 

He laughed a little — not mirthfully. 

“Failure is not usually a matter for congratula- 
tion,” he replied; “and yet — I am ready to agree 
that it may be so in this case, if it brings me success 
in another far higher, far dearer object.” He leaned 
toward her with a manner, at once ardent and as- 
sured, which told Isabel, who was a person of much 
experience in such matters, what was coming. “You 
must know,” he said, “what the other object is, — 
an object which has supplanted every other in my 
life, so that for the sake of it I am even glad to fail 
in this. For I have known how much your feeling 
has been opposed to me, and the knowledge has 
been so intolerable that only a stern sense of duty 
kept me loyal to the task I had undertaken. I hope 
— I believe — that you have appreciated the difficulty 
of my position.” 

“I have always felt sure that you would never 
have undertaken such a task if you had known how 
odious it was,” Miss Rivers answered. 

“Um — er — yes,” he assented somewhat doubt- 
fully. “But now that I am relieved — now that I 
have given it up honorably — I can come to you and 


A Request for Consolation. 303 

ask to be consoled for failure in one case by success 
in the other.” 

Miss Rivers’ expression was grave but quite self- 
possessed. 

“I am sorry to plead stupidity,” she said, “but I 
find it almost impossible to think that you can 
mean — ” 

“It is impossible that you can doubt what I mean,” 
he interrupted impetuously. “You must have felt 
with me that our meeting here — we two alone from 
the same social world — has not been without pur- 
pose and significance. You must have recognized 
that our association has naturally tended to this 
end — to my laying my life at your feet, and to my 
— er — hoping that you will give yourself to me.” 

“I am afraid I am very obtuse,” Isabel answered ; 
“but I have really not recognized anything of the 
kind. Our meeting here has seemed to me altogether 
accidental and of small importance, and I am ex- 
tremely sorry if you have entertained hopes which 
are impossible of fulfilment.” 

He flushed a sudden angry red as he stared at her. 

“You must certainly have known what my hopes 
have been,” he insisted. “Am I to understand that 
now — at last — you tell me they are impossible of 
realization ?” 

The tone even more than the words made Miss 
Rivers draw herself up a little haughtily. 

“I have known nothing of your hopes,” she re- 
plied ; “but if I may judge of them by what you have 


304 


A Daughter or the Sierra. 


just said, I must answer candidly that they are not 
only impossible of realization, but also very pre- 
sumptuous.” 

“Presumptuous!” he repeated, with something 
like a gasp of anger and amazement. 

“I am sorry if the word seems offensive,” the 
young lady went on quietly ; “but I can hardly need 
to remind you that it is presumptuous of a man to 
hope, without positive encouragement, that a woman 
will accept him.” 

“And do you venture to say that you have not 
given me positive encouragement?” he demanded 
angrily. 

“I deny absolutely that I have ever given you any 
encouragement at all,” Miss Rivers answered, “or 
that such an idea as encouraging you ever entered 
my mind.” 

He looked at her for a moment in silence, while 
the flush left his face and the deep resentment of 
wounded vanity gathered in his eyes. 

“I begin to understand,” he said bitterly. “It was 
all for a purpose — you were making a fool of me, 
in order that I might tell you my plans and you 
might betray them. Oh, it is very plain to me now ! 
Lloyd did your errand — warned the mine, so that it 
prepared for attack, while you coaxed from me a 
promise of delay.” 

Isabel rose to her feet, pale, indignant. 

“I can pardon a good deal in one who is disap- 
pointed,” she said, “but you forget yourself too 


A Request for Consolation. 305 

far. Your charges are both untrue and insulting. 
You must know it.” 

“I know that we have all served your purpose,” 
he replied, too resentful, too deeply stung with the 
humiliation of double failure to care what he said; 
“and now that I am a defeated man, through your 
wiles and your efforts, you throw me aside con- 
temptuously. But if you think that I shall endure 
such treatment, let me tell you that you are mis- 
taken. From this moment the fight against the 
Santa Cruz will be prosecuted with redoubled vigor, 
and the end is certain.” 

“I think that it is,” Isabel answered with perfectly 
recovered dignity; “for the Santa Cruz can be 
trusted to take care of itself. It stands in no need of 
assistance from me or from any one. And if this is 
all that you have to say to me, I will now bid you 
good-day.” 

But instead of accepting this dismissal, he stood 
still and regarded her, almost menacingly. 

“It is incredible,” he said, “that you are willing 
to let me go like this ! Do you realize what it is to 
make an enemy of me?” 

She measured him with a glance of cool, keen con- 
tempt. 

“I believe that I do,” she replied. 

“You fancy that because you have been admired, 
flattered, spoiled, you can do what you please,” he 
went on; “but I have some social power too, and it 
will not be a story which will be much to your 


306 


A Daughter or the Sierra. 


credit — the story which I will tell of your doings 
in the Sierra/’ 

“As a matter purely of curiosity,” she said, “I 
should like to know what you think you have to 
gain by these threats.” 

“I have nothing to gain, — nothing !” he returned. 
“But you have maddened me — you have played with 
me fooled me, led me on to professional failure — ” 

“Shall I repeat that your charges are as absurd as 
they are unfounded?” she said. “I have not 
played with you, I have not fooled you, — 
your own vanity alone has done that; and I 
have certainlv not caused your professional failure. 
That was inevitable. Whoever came here on such 
an errand as yours would fail.” 

He bowed ironically. 

“Whoever was so unfortunate as to find Miss 
Rivers opposed to him would certainly be likely to 
do so; for I see now that we have all been in your 
hands like puppets pulled by wires. You kept Thorn- 
ton from entering my employ, while you sent Lloyd 
to warn the Santa Cruz, and probably also to in- 
duce Randolph to desert my service. It has been 
as good as a play.” He laughed the harsh, mirth- 
less laugh which is the extreme expression of in- 
tense anger. “And Lloyd — Lloyd ! — has been cast 
for the part of hero! Your friends in San Fran- 
cisco will be interested to hear of this; they will 
find a spice of the charming inconsistency for which 
Miss Rivers is famous in the fact that while posing 


A Request for Consolation. 307 

as the champion of Trafford’s divorced Indian wife, 
your most intimate associate and favored admirer 
has been a ruined, discredited, divorced man!” 

“How dare you !” 

White to the lips with indignation, Isabel could 
only utter these words. For the first time in her 
sheltered life she found herself face to face with 
the unveiled brutality of a man’s passion, and for 
the first time self-possession and readiness of speech 
deserted her. Her eyes blazed as she looked at Armi- 
stead. But his last words had contained more than 
an insult: they carried also a shock, from which 
she felt herself trembling from head to foot, and 
under the effect of which movement and speech 
seemed to become impossible. She was conscious of 
wondering if there was no escape — if she must stand 
as a target for more of these insults, — when a hand 
was suddenly slipped into her arm, and a voice, cold 
and cutting as steel, spoke beside her. 

“Senor,” said Victoria; “you will instantly leave 
the lands of Las Joyas. I tolerated your presence 
here when I thought that you came as the friend 
of the senorita; but since you have come to annoy 
and insult her — for your voice has told me that, 
though I have not understood your words, — you 
must go, or I shall call my men yonder” — she 
pointed to some laborers in a field not far off — “to 
make you go.” 

There was an instant’s pause, filled with the soft 
rustle of the leaves over their heads. Nothing could 


308 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

have enraged Armistead more than this climax to an 
interview which already mortified him beyond endur- 
ance. To obey Victoria’s command was intolerable. 
Yet to disregard it was only to bring on himself 
worse humiliation ; for the determination in the dark 
eyes was as unmistakable as their command. He 
seized the bridle of his horse and turned to Miss 
Rivers. 

“The intervention of your savage friend was un- 
necessary,” he said. “I was about to take my de- 
parture. I believe there is nothing else for me to say 
except to offer my congratulations on the success of 
your efforts, and to hope that you will be pleased 
with their final result.” 

Then he mounted and rode away, leaving the girls 
standing together under the arching shade, beside 
the crystal water. 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


IJyOYD BRINGS A WARNING. 

I AM afraid that you are tired of Las Joyas, 

sehorita. ,, 

Miss Rivers started and looked around. She was 
seated on the corridor of the casa grande — the great, 
white-arched corridor which ran along the front of 
the house and commanded such a wide view of 
the valley and mountains, — and she had been so ab- 
sorbed in thought, with her gaze fixed on the sunset 
fires burning above the great hills, that she had 
not heard Victoria’s approach, which indeed had 
been silent. Now she found the girl sitting beside 
her on the bench where she was seated. 

“Tired !” she repeated quickly. “Why do you think 
such a thing? How could I be tired of Las Joyas? 
It is the most beautiful place I have ever seen.” 

“But it must be dull to you,” Victoria said; “and 
it has seemed to me that for the last few days you 
have been triste — sad, do you not say? — as if you 
were tired.” 

“I am not tired, but disgusted,” Miss Rivers re- 
plied. 

“Disgusted !” Victoria repeated, opening her dark 
eyes. 


309 


310 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


“With myself, not with Las Joyas,” Isabel ex- 
plained. “And there is nothing more disagreeable 
than to be disgusted with oneself. One can support 
things with philosophy when one is disgusted only 
with others or with the world in general ; but when 
one’s self-esteem has received a shock, and one feels 
that instead of displaying the wisdom of prudence 
and other admirable qualities of which one has fan- 
cied oneself possessed, one has displayed just the 
opposite of all these — well, then disgust sets in with 
deadly earnestness, and even the Sierra ceases to 
have power to charm.” 

“But why should you feel this disgust?” Victoria 
asked. “What has happened to make you think such 
things of yourself?” 

“You know what has happened. You know of the 
visit of that detestable man.” 

“I know you have not been the same since he was 
here, but I do not know why his visit should have 
affected you so much.” 

“It is rather hard to tell,” said Miss Rivers, after 
a pause. “In the first place, it made me feel that I 
had interfered with matters which did not concern 
me, and had — as we say in English — made a fool of 
myself.” 

“That,” said Victoria, with conviction, “you could 
not do.” 

“Oh, yes, I could — I can — with great complete- 
ness ! I have laid myself open to misapprehension — 
not that I mind that at all, — I have found out how 


Lloyd Brings a Warning. 


311 


odious a man’s admiration can become; I have 
learned that one should not suffer oneself to grow 
interested in mysteries, for they are likely to prove 
commonplace and disgusting; and — altogether I 
feel that the Santa Cruz could have got on very well 
without my aid, and that I should be much more 
comfortable if I had let it alone.” 

“I don’t understand all that you mean,” said Vic- 
toria, who was indeed very much puzzled; “but I 
am sure that you are mistaken about the Santa Cruz. 
There can be no doubt that you saved the mine when 
you sent Mr. Lloyd to warn us — ” 

“And nearly caused his death,” said Isabel, with 
a somewhat hysterical laugh. “Don’t let us forget 
that. Oh, I am tired — tired of it all !” she cried sud- 
denly, passionately in English. “And I feel as if it 
were not over — as if trouble, tragedy were yet to 
come.” 

She rose with an abrupt movement and walked to 
the edge of the corridor, where, leaning against a 
pillar, she looked out over the darkening landscape. 
The wide solemnity of the plain and hills and bend- 
ing sky failed for once to impart their tranquillity to 
her. She was filled with a restlessness which she did 
not understand, as well as the disgust of which 
she had spoken to Victoria. As a matter of fact, 
what she was tasting was that bitter sense of the 
unsatisfactoriness of all things, which few persons 
are so fortunate as to go through life without know- 
ing, but which had never assailed her before. For 


312 


A Daughter or the Sierra. 


there could be no doubt that she had heretofore 
lived very much on the surface of existence, — in an 
atmosphere of admiration, of acknowledged queen- 
ship, which made life seem a very roseate and 
satisfactory thing indeed. And now, suddenly, the 
shielding veil was torn aside and she saw life as it 
was, — felt rather than perceived its ugly depths, its 
hardness and its pain. Armistead’s abrupt change 
from the flattering deference which is the outward 
attitude of many men toward women, to the coarse 
brutality which is their inward attitude, had en- 
lightened her even more than it angered her. 
Anger was reserved for another man, — for one who 
had ventured to approach her — to rouse her pity, 
her sympathy, her interest, while having upon him a 
stigma from which of all things she shrank most; 
against which, as she had once said, her taste re- 
volted as much as her faith condemned. Justice 
after a while would remind her how carefully he had 
abstained from any attempt to rouse this interest; 
but just now she was only conscious of the unreason- 
able anger and the deep-seated disgust. 

Meanwhile Victoria, who had come again to her 
side with silent tread, was listening to a sound 
which, though still far off, was momentarily draw- 
ing nearer; and she suddenly spoke. 

“Some one is riding fast,” she said. “That is 
not common in the Sierra.” 

Isabel glanced at the speaker quickly. She had 
not heard the sound; but this did not surprise her, 


Lloyd Brings a Warning. 313 

for she had learned the difference between Victoria’s 
ear and her own. 

“Is the rider coming from the mine ?” she asked. 

“No,” Victoria answered : “from the other direc- 
tion — from Urbeleja.” 

“Ah !” Isabel knew that at Urbeleja was the one 
telegraph office — established in a cave — in this part 
of the Sierra, and her thoughts leaped at once to a 
conclusion. “It is a dispatch, perhaps.” 

“Perhaps,” Victoria responded, but doubtfully 
and without any trace of anxiety. Dispatches were 
infrequent and meant little at Las Joyas. 

Then the sound reached Isabel’s ears, and to her 
the rapid beat of the horse’s hoofs as he galloped 
along the valley seemed filled with the suggestion 
of haste, of trouble, of all the wearing cares of life 
and civilization which even the great hills could 
not keep back. She found herself listening intently, 
the same question in her mind as in Victoria’s — 
would the rider pass the gate of Las Joyas or would 
he enter? 

It was a question soon answered. The rapid 
hoof-beats ceased — that was for the opening of the 
gate, — and then were heard again, advancing across 
the valley toward the house. And now, too, the 
figure of a horse and rider could be perceived even 
through the gathering dusk. Isabel turned to her 
companion, as sure of the keenness of her glance as 
of her ear. 

“Who is it?” she asked. 


314 A Daughter of the Sierra. 

But Victoria did not answer at once. Indeed the 
twilight made identification difficult even for her 
vision, so that it was not until the horseman rode 
up before the corridor that she exclaimed: 

“It is the Senor Lloyd !” 

It was a joyful exclamation — so joyful that even 
her quick ear did not catch the sharp indrawing of 
her companion’s breath. At this moment Miss 
Rivers would have given much if a way of retreat 
had been open to her. But, consistent with dignity, 
there was none. So she stood silent — a quiet, digni- 
fied figure in the dusk, — as Lloyd dismounted and 
came forward. He shook hands with Victoria, whose 
eager, cordial welcome left nothing to be desired; 
and then, as he took the hand which Miss Rivers 
extended, something like a shock passed over him. 
He could not see her face very distinctly, and there 
had been nothing to warn him of any change in 
her feeling toward him; but when he felt the cool, 
light touch of her fingers — so reluctantly given, so 
hastily withdrawn, so entirely without the magnetic 
cordiality which is felt in the hand-clasp of friends, 
— he knew that a change had occurred. For the 
brief instant that he held her hand he glanced at 
her questioningly. 

“How do you do, Mr. Lloyd ?” she said. “This is 
very unexpected, seeing you at Las Joyas. 

“My coming is unexpected to me,” he answered. 
Then he turned to Victoria. “Is Don Mariano 
here?” he asked. 


Lloyd Brings a Warning. 315 

“No,” she replied. “He is at the hacienda de 
benehcio. The conducta for Culiacan started to-day, 
and there has been much business needing atten- 
tion.” 

“Ah! the conducta started to-day !” said Lloyd. 
He was silent for a moment, as if reflecting. “Don 
Arturo, then? — he is here?” he asked. 

“Yes, Arturo is here,” said Victoria with evident 
surprise, her voice indicating what her next words 
expressed plainly. “What do you want with Don 
Mariano or with Arturo that I can not do?” 

“I only want to say a few words to one or the 
other of them,” Lloyd answered. “Indeed I think 
I will ask Don Arturo to ride on with me to the 
hacienda de benehcio ” 

“Something is the matter,” said Victoria quickly. 
“What is it? You have no right to withhold from 
me any news about the mine.” 

“I am not sure that anything is the matter,” Lloyd 
replied; “and it is because I am not sure that I 
did not want to disturb or annoy you. I have had 
a warning which may amount to nothing — ” 

“A warning that the mine is to be attacked ?” 

“It is really hardly more than a rumor; but I 
wish to be sure that Don Mariano is on his guard. 
So if I may ask you to call Arturo; we will ride 
on — ” 

“You must come in,” Victoria interposed per- 
emptorily. “Arturo can go immediately. But you 


316 A Daughter or the Sierra. 

must rest and take refreshment; for you have been 
riding hard to reach here — ” 

He laughed a little. 

“How do you know that?” he asked. “But for 
the sake of my horse — yes, you can take him, 
Pancho, — I will wait a little, if Arturo goes on at 
once.” 

“He shall go,” the girl said ; and, turning hastily, 
entered the house. 

There was an instant’s pause of silence with the 
two left together on the corridor. Then Miss Rivers 
said in a voice which she strove to make as usual, but 
in which to Lloyd’s ear there was a suggestion of 
delicate ice : 

“What is the meaning of this? How did the 
warning reach you? I ask because a day or two 
ago I — I heard that Mr. Armistead had abandoned 
his intention of taking the mine by force and had 
left the Sierra.” 

“So you heard that?” said Lloyd. He glanced 
at her quickly and keenly, as she stood, a graceful, 
white-clad figure in the dusk. “I, too, heard some- 
thing of the kind ; but there is reason to believe that 
we were misinformed or that Armistead has changed 
his mind.” 

“I was not misinformed,” said Isabel; “but it is 
possible that Mr. Armistead may have changed his 
mind. Please tell me what you know.” 

“Really not very much,” Lloyd answered. “Per- 
haps I should begin by telling you that when I left 


Li,oyd Brings a Warning. 317 

you in the Sierra and went back to the Quebrada 
Onda, I found that the party there was Randolph’s 
— that is, Armi stead’s — on its way to attempt the 
surprise of the Santa Cruz.” 

“Ah!” she exclaimed quickly. “Then he never 
meant to keep his promise to me! I am glad of 
that.” 

Lloyd did not ask why she was glad; he only 
went on quietly: 

“I told Randolph that he would find the mine 
thoroughly prepared to resist attack; and he — act- 
ing to a certain degree on his own responsibility, 
and knowing that he could not count on his men 
in such an event — decided to turn back and await 
direct orders from Armistead.” 

Even the twilight could not hide the flash in Miss 
Rivers’ eyes. The ice seemed to be thawing as she 
said eagerly : 

“And then — ?” 

“Well, then we rode together back to Canelas,” 
said Lloyd. He hesitated a moment, — it seemed 
difficult for him to go on. “I think I told you that 
I thought it possible I knew the man — Randolph, 
I mean,” he continued, with an effort which was 
plain to her. “I found that it was he — the man I 
had known many years ago, and who was connected 
with certain passages in my life. At that time 
he had been very much under my influence — until 
he fell under the influence of another person — and 
perhaps the old feeling revived. At all events, he 


318 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

decided after hearing my opinion of this matter, 
to resign his service with Armistead. It was after 
this that Armistead made up his mind to abandon 
any further attempt against the Santa Cruz.” 

“I see !” She did not tell him what she saw, as 
she gazed across the night-shadowed valley toward 
the forest-clad heights which overhung the sleep- 
ing pools ; but he divined that it was something that 
had to do with her own information of Armistead’s 
intentions. “And now,” she went on quickly, as her 
glance returned to his and he felt again the dilating 
flash of her brilliant eyes, “what reason have you for 
thinking that he has changed his mind again ?” 

“The reason of a dispatch from Randolph, who is 
still in Canelas, which reached me at Urbeleja to- 
day. When I returned to the Sierra I told him to 
advise me of anything he heard — ” 

“Yes, yes. And he has heard — ?” 

“That Armistead has wired a certain unscrupu- 
lous Mexican — Pedro Sanchez — to collect the men 
already employed and bring them to him in the 
Sierra. It looks as if he intends to make an at- 
tempt, after all, to seize the Santa Cruz; probably 
counting on the fact of his intention to abandon 
any such attempt being known at the mine and so 
putting them off guard. I am more inclined to 
believe this since I hear that the conducta has left 
to-day — carrying, of course, a number of the best 
men with it.” 

“I am sure that you are right,” said Isabel. “It 


Lloyd Brings a Warning. 319 

is all perfectly plain. He came here a few days 
ago — oh, yes, he ventured even that! — to tell me 
that he was leaving the Sierra, having given up all 
intention of trying to take the Santa Cruz. Per- 
haps this was really his intention when he came ; but 
— afterward he determined for many reasons that he 
would not go away defeated ; that he would take ad- 
vantage of the news of his withdrawal being known 
at the mine — of guard being, therefore, probably 
relaxed — to surprise and seize it. In his anger 
he permitted himself to say something before he 
left — to make a threat which should have prepared 
me for some such action on his part.” 

“This settles it,” said Lloyd. “I haven’t the least 
doubt now that he hopes to find the mine unguarded, 
and so surprise it — probably to-night.” 

“But if you have just had your dispatch from 
Canelas, the men can not have reached him — ” 

“That dispatch, unfortunately, has been lying at 
Urbeleja for two or three days. I only reached 
there to-day.” 

“Then the danger is pressing?” 

“Very pressing. I think I had better see why 
Arturo delays.” 

He turned toward the open door of the house as 
he spoke, but at the moment Victoria appeared 
in it. 

“Don Felipe,” she said, “my mother wishes to 
speak to you.” Then she extended her hand to 
Isabel. “You will come too, senorita,” she added. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


DONA BEATRIZ GIVES HER ORDERS. 

I T was a scene Isabel Rivers never forgot — that 
B which awaited them when they entered the great 
court of the house. Here deeper shadows than those 
outside had gathered; and the lamps hanging at 
intervals in the corridors had been lighted, bringing 
out the massive walls, the forms of the arches, the 
dim distances where silent draped figures passed to 
and fro, — the whole atmosphere of almost Oriental 
strangeness, mystery and picturesqueness which al- 
ways appealed to her so strongly. And under one of 
the swinging iron lamps stood a figure which seemed 
to embody every suggestion of the background — 
the stately figure of Dona Beatriz ; the folds of the 
rebozo which covered her head and draped her 
shoulders lending a statuesque grace to her aspect; 
while her finely-cut face and deep, dark eyes were 
full of the expression of some strong emotion. Near 
her, leaning against one of the pillars which sup- 
ported the arches, was Arturo, his whole attitude, 
as well as the look of his handsome countenance, elo- 
quent of anger, protest, indignation. The scene ap- 
peared to Isabel’s quick, imaginative sense as if set 
for a drama, alive with the strife of strong wills 
320 


Dona Beatriz Gives Her Orders. 321 


and vital issues ; but, with the consciousness of hav- 
ing herself no other part to play than that of spec- 
tator, she sank down on one of the benches ranged 
against the wall, while her companions went for- 
ward into the mingled radiance and shadow of the 
lamplight. 

Doha Beatriz held out her hand to Lloyd with a 
gesture of cordial greeting. 

“Senor,” she said in her full, sweet voice, “you 
are always welcome at Las Joyas, but never more 
welcome than when you come as a true friend to 
bring us a warning.” 

“I am happy, senora, if my warning has come 
in time to be of service/’ Lloyd answered, with a 
deference and grace of manner which the spectator 
thought altogether worthy of the occasion. “But I 
would suggest that Don Arturo should lose no time 
in going to the mine — ” 

“I should have been on the road now,” Arturo 
interposed abruptly, “if Dona Beatriz had not in- 
terfered and said — said — oh, I can not repeat it! 
It is past patience!” the young man cried, with all 
the indignation which clearly possessed him finding 
expression in his voice. 

Doha Beatriz turned with an air of gentle com- 
mand and laid her hand on his arm. 

“Be quiet, Arturo!” she said. Then she looked 
at Lloyd. “He is flot willing to go,” she explained, 
“because he does not wish to carry my orders to 
the mine.” 


322 A Daughter or thr Sirrra. 

“No!” Arturo said violently. “I will not carry 
such orders! If we are forbidden to defend the 
mine, I, for one, will not go near it!” 

“Forbidden to defend the mine!” Lloyd repeated 
with astonishment. He glanced from Doha Beatriz 
to Victoria. The girl had stepped to her mother’s 
side, as if to support her in whatever she might 
say ; but her eyes were downcast, so that she did not 
meet his glance; and it was plain from her com- 
pressed lips that she found it difficult not to echo 
Arturo’s indignant protest. Lloyd looked again at 
Doha Beatriz. “That surely can not be your order, 
senora ?” he said. “It is impossible !” 

“My order,” Doha Beatriz replied, “is that no 
blood shall be shed to defend my property. If 
those who come to take the mine can be repulsed 
without bloodshed, let it be done; but I will not 
incur the responsibility of sending any soul out 
of the world for such a cause.” 

“But the responsibility will not be yours,” Lloyd 
said. “It will belong to those who are the ag- 
gressors in the matter.” 

“It will be theirs chiefly, — I know that,” she an- 
swered. “But it will be mine also, if I suffer myself 
to be forced into deeds of violence. I have thought 
much of this, senor; I have suffered much and 
prayed much, and it is very clear to me: I can not 
allow blood to be shed in this struggle.” 

“Do you, then, intend to give up your mine to 


Dona Beatriz Gives Her Orders. 323 


those who are probably now on their way to sur- 
prise and seize it?” Lloyd asked. 

“I would rather give it up than that any one 
should be killed either in its defence or among those 
who come to take it,” she replied firmly. 

“But they come knowing the risk they run; and 
they come, senora — do not forget this, — with arms 
in their hands. They are ready to kill, and there- 
fore if they should be killed it would be no more than 
justice.” 

Dona Beatriz’ eyes were full of a strange, lovely 
light as she looked at him. 

“Even if so,” she said, “it is not for me to deal 
justice to them. That I leave to God. Let Him 
judge between me and those who come to injure 
me. My cause is in His hands, and I desire noth- 
ing — nothing — but that His will may be done.” 

“You can not think,” Lloyd urged, “that it is the 
will of God that you should be robbed.” 

“That, senor,” she returned quietly, “I do not 
know, and neither do you. It is often the will of 
God that we should suffer loss of many things. 
He has already permitted me to lose much, to which 
the Santa Cruz, with all its wealth, is as nothing, 
but, while He permits this, I am sure there is one 
thing He does not permit, and that is that I shall 
defend myself or my property by any act of wrong- 
doing.” 

There was a moment’s pause. Every one of those 
present shared more or less in the indignant anger 


324 A Daughter of the; Sifrra. 

and protest which Arturo had so openly and vehem- 
ently expressed; yet every one was touched, almost 
awed into silence, by the attitude of this woman, by 
the loftiness of the spirit with which she met the cul- 
minating injury which confronted her. Lloyd, con- 
scious of admiration and exasperation in equal pro- 
portion, turned to the silent girl, who stood by the 
side of the noble figure, mutely supporting even 
while mutely protesting. 

“Dona Victoria,” he said, “can you not persuade 
your mother that there is no wrongdoing in de- 
fending her just rights ?” 

In response to this appeal, Victoria lifted her eyes 
and met his gaze, throwing back her head a little 
as she did so. Her expression was sad but proud. 

“Senor,” she answered, “my mother has spoken 
for me in speaking for herself. What she says, I 
must say also.” 

“Ah!” It was Isabel Rivers who uttered this 
quick, irrepressible exclamation, which conveyed to 
one ear at least the passionate admiration it ex- 
pressed. For who knew so well as she what those 
words meant, — she who had won her way deep into 
the heart of the Mexican girl ; who had seen its fiery 
passion, its strength of fierce determination laid 
bare? And having seen, having sympathized with 
all which was in that heart, she now felt herself 
thrilled, as we can be thrilled only by that which 
touches upon the heroic, by this brief utterance, 
which expressed such intense loyalty of affection, 
such difficult submission, such hard self-conquest. 


Dona Beatriz Gives Her Orders. 325 


Lloyd, on his part, quietly bowed. 

“In that case,” he said, “I can offer no further 
advice.” 

“But my mother does not mean,” Victoria went 
on eagerly, “that we are ungrateful for your warn- 
ing, or that we mean to disregard it. She has asked 
Arturo to go to the mine, to see that the men are 
in readiness for an attack — ” 

“But to forbid them to use their weapons — to re- 
quest them to permit themselves to be shot down 
without resistance !” Arturo interrupted bitterly. “I 
refuse to carry such an order. You understand, 
senor, that it is absurd — that the men will never 
submit — it is asking too much of them. If they 
are forbidden to defend the mine in the only way 
in which it can be defended, they will throw down 
their arms and leave it, and no one could blame 
them.” 

“It is true,” Lloyd said, addressing Doha Beatriz. 
“If you wish to give up your mine, you have 
the right to do so, but you have not the right 
to forbid these men who are in your service to de- 
fend themselves. That, as Don Arturo says, is asking 
too much.” 

Doha Beatriz looked at him with a sudden pas- 
sion of appeal in her gaze. 

“What am I to do, senor?” she asked. “How 
can I endure to bring upon my soul the guilt of 
shedding blood? Ah, you do not know,” she cried, 


326 


A Daughter of the: Sie;rra. 


“what I have suffered from the fear of this ! It has 
deprived me of peace by day and of sleep by night ; 
but I have hoped and prayed that it might not come, 
— that, knowing we were prepared for resistance, 
those who thought to surprise the mine would not 
make the attempt. And I had begun to think that 
my prayers were answered and to have a little peace 
of mind and soul; and now — now — ’’she suddenly 
broke down and flung herself weeping into a chair 
near by. “God has not heard my prayer,” she said, 
“and I know not what to do!” 

Lloyd and Victoria looked at each other across her 
bowed head. If there had been appeal in the mother’s 
eyes a moment before, there was much deeper ap- 
peal now in the daughter’s — an appeal which Lloyd 
read clearly: “Is there no way to help her? — no 
way to lift this burden of frightful responsibility 
which is crushing her who has already borne so 
much?” Victoria’s gaze asked with a mute passion 
which, together with the sobs of the woman whose 
self-control had so suddenly yielded under the strain 
laid upon it, stirred Lloyd’s chivalry to its depths. 
And the girl, whose eyes were fastened upon his, 
was conscious of this, — conscious that her appeal 
was understood and answered ; conscious of a mag- 
netic current of comfort and sympathy; an assur- 
ance of the help she asked — a sense of reliance — a 
conviction that he would relieve this sensitive soul 
of the fears which tortured it. She seemed to know 
what he would say when he bent down to Dona 
Beatriz. 


Dona Beatriz Gives Her Orders. 327 


“Don’t be so much distressed, senora,” he said 
gently. “There is — there must be a way out of this 
difficulty without the bloodshed which you fear. 
Will you trust me to find it for you ?” 

Doha Beatriz looked at him, and words ever after 
failed her to say all that she read in the face bend- 
ing over her. 

“Senor,” she replied, “if you can find it, I will 
thank and bless and pray for you always.” 

“Then it is settled,” he returned, smiling — 
“especially about the prayers.” He turned around. 
“Don Arturo,” he said, “Doha Beatriz is good 
enough to entrust me with the management of this 
matter. Will you order another horse for me — I 
fear mine is too tired to go farther, — and prepare 
yourself to accompany me to the mine?” 

“And order my mule, Arturo. I will go also,” 
Victoria said. 

Lloyd turned to her quickly. 

“Let me beg that you will do nothing of the kind,” 
he said. “The mine — to-night — is no place for you.” 

“You are mistaken,” she answered quietly. “It is 
the place for me, not only because it is my right to be 
there, but also because the men obey no one as they 
obey me.” 

“Nevertheless,” he urged earnestly, “there is no 
need—” 

“There is need,” she interrupted, drawing her 
dark brows together with the expression of deter- 
mination he knew so well. “And even if there were 


328 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


not, nothing could prevent me from going. Arturo, 
order my mule.” 

Half an hour later — for Doha Beatriz insisted 
that Lloyd should take some supper before leaving 
the house again — the saddled animals were before 
the door; and he came out to them, carrying with 
him a sense of disappointment and pain ; for he had 
looked around the corridors for Miss Rivers in order 
to say a farewell word, and had failed to find her. 
Putting this avoidance — for he was sure it could be 
nothing else — together with the new coldness which 
he had heard in her voice and felt in her manner 
when they met at the time of his arrival, he felt a 
conviction that something had occurred to change 
her feeling toward him — that frank, delightful 
friendly feeling which had been to him like water in 
the desert to the thirsty, — and to make her withhold 
even a word of interest and Godspeed when he was 
leaving on an errand which at another time would 
have commanded her keenest sympathy. 

Many men would have found solace for disap- 
pointment in recalling time-worn and not wholly un- 
justified sayings about feminine variableness and 
caprice; but Lloyd knew Isabel Rivers better than to 
think, or even pretend to think, that such sayings 
could be applicable to her. Neither variableness nor 
caprice had place or part in her, he was sure; so it 
followed that she must have a reason for this great 
change, and that reason he instinctively knew to be 
a serious one. It was, therefore, with a keen. .con- 


Dona Beatriz Gives Her Orders. 329 


sciousness of the disappointment and pain already 
mentioned that, having shaken hands with Doha 
Beatriz, and assured her again that he would do 
everything in his power to fulfil her wishes, he 
walked out to the corridor where the horses waited 
— and there found two feminine figures already 
mounted. 

He paused for an instant, amazed and startled. 
Then he walked up to the side of the one whom 
even in the obscurity of night there was no mis- 
taking. 

“Miss Rivers,” he said gravely, “pardon me for 
telling you that this is a great mistake. You should 
not think of going to the mine to-night.” 

“I supposed you would probably say so,” Miss 
Rivers replied calmly; “and so I took care to be 
mounted and ready to start when you came out. 
Since Victoria goes, I am going with her.” 

“I must remind you that the cases are very differ- 
ent. I disapprove of Dona Victoria’s going, but 
she has the right of the owner to be there.” 

“And I have the right of the friend of the owner,” 
Isabel returned lightly and coolly. “Please don’t 
delay us by arguing the matter, Mr. Lloyd. I am 
going.” 

“I am sure that your father would never per- 
mit—” 

“My father, fortunately, is in Topia,” the young 
lady interrupted, “and I am not aware that he has 
delegated his power to — any one. Frankly, I would 


330 


A Daughter or the Sierra. 


not miss this for anything; so it is really quite use- 
less for you to say another word.” 

Still Lloyd persevered in saying another word. 

“Don’t you understand — have you no idea — what 
may take place there to-night, in spite of anything 
I can do?” he urged in a low tone. “I beg that 
you will stay ! I beg that you will keep Dona Vic- 
toria here if possible!” 

Isabel leaned toward him, and he saw the glow 
of strong excitement dilating and shining in her 
eyes. 

“Do you mean,” she whispered, “that there may 
be danger?” 

Lloyd made the great mistake of misunderstand- 
ing her. 

“Yes,” he answered, “there may be danger. It 
will certainly be no time — no place for women. Most 
earnestly I beg you — ” 

Miss Rivers straightened herself in her saddle. 

“Danger is not exactly an argument with me for 
deserting my friends,” she said. “On the contrary, 
it is an added reason for staying with them. Noth- 
ing, I am sure, can prevent Victoria from going, and 
I shall certainly go with her. I think you had better 
mount, Mr. Lloyd. This is waste of time.” 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


on the; way to the: santa cruz. 

UT into the night — the marvellous, starlit night 
—the party rode, the sound of their horses’ 
tread echoing through the stillness which held the 
earth, as it were, under a spell ; while all the fresh- 
ness of the forests, the resinous odor of the pines, 
the fragrance of unnumbered plants, flowers and 
vines along the margins of the streams, came to 
them on the sweet, cool air which fanned their 
faces as they rode. In the clear radiance of the star- 
light every object was distinctly visible, — every fold 
of the great hills, every crest which cut against the 
violet sky, so “thick inlaid with patines of bright 
gold,” every group of trees on the wide expanse of 
the valley. It seemed to Isabel Rivers that nothing 
could possibly have been more glorious than the 
purple splendor of the night; nothing more full of 
poetic suggestion, of the great mystery, silence and 
beauty of Nature, than the outlines of the towering 
hills, the sleeping woods. It also seemed to her 
that life could hold no physical delight more keen 
than that of riding in the wonderful starshine 
through these wild, lovely scenes on the errand 
which took them forth. For the love of adventure, 
331 


332 


A Daughter or the Sierra. 


always strongly alive in her, was to-night quickened 
into a passion which helped to produce the sense of 
exhilaration that filled her veins like wine. 

As may readily be imagined, however, no such ex- 
hilaration filled Lloyd’s veins. On the contrary, he 
was conscious of a very distinct sense of depres- 
sion and regret as he rode across the valley toward 
the hacienda de benedcio and the canon of the Santa 
Cruz. If he had not been a fool, so he remarked 
with unflattering candor to himself, he would not 
have gone to the casa grande , but would have con- 
tinued on his way to the mine, where his business 
lay, — if indeed he could be said to have any busi- 
ness in the matter, which just now he was strongly 
inclined to doubt. In that case none of the present 
complications would have arisen: Doha Beatriz’ 
very inconvenient scruples would not have asserted 
themselves; he would not have been led to make a 
promise which it was exceedingly disagreeable to 
him to attempt to fulfil; and — above all and most 
conducive to vexation ! — he would not have brought 
upon himself the embarrassing companionship of 
two obstinate young women, neither of whom had 
any fit part in such an expedition, and one of whom 
was most particularly and grievously out of place. 

Absorbed with these reflections, he rode silently 
and alone in the rear of the party until they reached 
the hacienda de benedcio. Here, filing through the 
great gateway into the large, dimly-lighted patio , 
they were met by Don Mariano, who, followed by 


On the: Way to the: Santa Cruz. 333 


two or three other men, came hurriedly out of the of- 
fice at the sound of a cavalcade riding into the court. 
His surprise was extreme when he recognized the 
members of the party, and his strong face set grimly 
when he heard Eloyd’s story. He turned at once to 
Arturo. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked sharply. 
“Why have you not ridden on to the mine to see 
that the men are prepared for an attack ?” 

Arturo shrugged his shoulders. 

“I have not ridden on,” he answered, “because 
some strange commands have been given. Dona 
Beatriz orders that the men shall not use their 
rifles.” 

“What!” Don Mariano fell back a step in his 
amazement. “Not use their rifles ! How, then, are 
they to defend the mine?” 

“They can not defend it,” the young man replied. 
“And that is why I have refused to carry such 
an order.” 

Don Mariano turned to Victoria, his dark eyes 
glowing with sudden fire. 

“What does this mean?” he demanded. “Has 
your mother lost her senses? Is she ready to give 
up the mine?” 

“Even if she were ready to give it up, it is her 
own and she has a right to do so,” the girl an- 
swered ; “but her orders have no such meaning. She 
only desires that there shall be no blood shed in 
its defence.” 


334 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

“Bah !” said the man, who had been a soldier in 
the days of strife which are not so far gone that 
they can not be clearly remembered in Mexico. “This 
is what comes of having to do with women ! Arturo, 
ride at once to the mine and have the men armed 
and ready — ” 

“No!” Victoria cried, as she drew her mule 
across the gateway. “You shall not carry such an 
order in face of my mother’s positive command to 
the contrary. Don Mariano, you forget yourself! 
My mother’s authority is supreme here.” 

Don Mariano glared at her fiercely. 

“Your mother is a woman,” he said, “and does 
not know — ” 

“She is the owner of the Santa Cruz,” Victoria 
interrupted, “and that is all that matters.” 

“It appears that she begins to doubt whether 
or not she is the owner,” Don Mariano returned bit- 
terly. 

“She has never for an instant doubted it, or she 
would not have held the mine,” the girl answered. 
“But the fear of strife has tortured her, and now 
at last she declares that she will sooner lose the 
mine than bring any stain of blood-guiltiness on her 
soul.” 

“And have you turned coward too?” Don 
Mariano asked with fierce bitterness. 

To those looking on, there did not seem that there 
could be a question of cowardice in connection with 


On the Way to the Santa Cruz. 335 


the proud face and dauntless eyes which answered 
even before the lips. 

“What my mother says, I say,” Victoria replied, 
as she had replied in the patio of Las Joyas. “You 
know well that if left to myself I would defend the 
mine at any cost, but I would rather give it up 
forever than add the least weight to her burden of 
suffering. And this would be the worst suffering 
of all ; for it would touch her conscience, which has 
always heretofore been at peace. Do you think I 
would do that for all the wealth of the Santa Cruz ? 
In this matter no one is concerned but my mother 
and myself, and I am here to see that her orders are 
obeyed.” 

Involuntarily Lloyd and Isabel Rivers glanced 
at each other, and each read in the eyes of the other 
the same quick, passionate admiration which had 
thrilled both at Las Joyas. It was a feeling in 
which Don Mariano did not share, but he fell back 
and motioned toward the gate. 

“Go, then!” he said. “Go and give your orders 
at the mine. I will stay here.” 

He was striding back to the office when Lloyd 
rode up to him. 

“Don Mariano,” he said earnestly, “let me beg 
that you will go to the mine. Your presence there is 
absolutely necessary to keep order and to resist at- 
tack, if an attack should be made — ” 

Don Mariano turned upon him fiercely. 


336 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


“How is it possible to resist attack without using 
weapons?” he demanded. 

“If it came to a question of self-defence, I am sure 
Doha Beatriz would not desire that the men should 
not use their weapons,” Lloyd replied. “But I have 
promised her that I will try to prevent any such 
necessity — ” 

“You !” Don Mariano interrupted. “How can you 
prevent it?” 

“I may not succeed in preventing it,” Lloyd an- 
swered ; “but I will make the attempt. And in order 
to do so it is my intention to go out in search of 
the men whom we have reason to belive are coming, 
instead of waiting for them to reach the mine.” 

Don Mariano looked up curiously into the quiet 
face looking down at him. 

“And when you find them, senor — what then?” 

“Then,” Lloyd answered, “I will try to bring some 
arguments to bear on their leader which may pos- 
sibly change his purpose. If I fail — well, we shall 
only be where we are now ; but I have promised that 
I will make the attempt. Meanwhile I hope that 
you will go to the mine, for I want Don Arturo to 
come with me.” 

Quiet as the face and voice both were, there was 
a wonderfully compelling power in them which Don 
Mariano found it impossible to resist. 

“Very well,” he replied: “I will go to the mine. 
But if an attack is made on it, I refuse absolutely 


On the; Way to thk Santa Cruz. 337 


to be bound by or to regard Dona Beatriz’ orders 
about the use of firearms.” 

“I am sure,” said Lloyd, significantly, “that you 
will respect Dona Beatriz’ wishes as far as possible . 
She would certainly not ask the men to allow them- 
selves to be overpowered without making any re- 
sistance. Now I will take Don Arturo and go — ” 

“Stop !” said Don Mariano. “Do you know where 
to go?” 

“Only the general direction.” 

“Then I advise you to wait until the party has 
been located. I will send some men out as scouts 
who know the Sierra thoroughly. They will soon 
find exactly where the party is, and you will do well 
to wait until you have their report.” 

Recognizing the wisdom of this suggestion, 
Lloyd agreed ; and a few minutes later, with the ad- 
dition of Don Mariano and several men from the 
hacienda, the cavalcade was again in motion and 
riding toward the Santa Cruz. 

Before leaving the mill, an effort had been made 
to induce Victoria and Miss Rivers to return to Las 
Joyas; but since Victoria positively refused to do 
so, Isabel also announced her intention of going on 
to the mine; and this time Lloyd made no protest 
when she declared her resolution. Silently they 
filed out of the great gateway, which closed with a 
loud clang behind them, and rode toward the mouth 
of the dark canon between the heights. 


338 


A Daughter of thf Sierra. 


And if this canon was dark and forbidding in 
daylight, it was almost appalling in the gloom which 
now filled it; for the night, so glorious and radiant 
out on the wide plain, was here terrible in its en- 
veloping shade, its suggestions and possibilities of 
danger. Into the deep, narrow defile the starlight 
had no power to penetrate ; and the roar of the tor- 
rent in its depths seemed intensified and menacing 
in sound as it rose between the rocky walls. Brave 
as she was, Isabel Rivers felt her heart sink a lit- 
tle, and the sense of adventure became somewhat 
less delightful as the road entered the canon and 
she remembered the narrowness of the shelf along 
which the trail lay, and the depth of the abyss that 
yawned below. It was with intense relief that she 
was suddenly conscious of a hand laid lightly on 
her bridle, of a figure walking at the head of her 
mule along the perilous way. Even in the dark- 
ness she knew that figure; and, although no word 
was spoken, she was conscious of a confidence 
which banished fear as she felt herself led along 
the unseen path, with the outlines of rugged heights 
towering above, and the loud clamor of furious 
waters below. 

It was an experience she was never likely to for- 
get, this silent ride through the darkness of the 
wild defile; nor yet the scene which suddenly burst 
upon their view as the last turn of the way brought 
them in sight of the mine. The foremost riders had 
already reached the patio , and had lighted some 


On the Way to the Santa Cruz. 339 


torches of resinous pine — prepared and always kept 
in readiness by the men, — the red glare of which 
now lighted up all the mighty escarpment of the 
mountain and the towering cross on its great pile 
of boulders. 

“Oh, how wonderful !” Isabel cried, when she first 
caught sight of the marvellously picturesque effect. 

She spoke to herself, but the tall figure walking 
beside the head of her mule heard and glanced back 
at her. 

“It is wonderful, isn’t it?” said Lloyd. “What a 
scene for a painter !” 

“What a scene to remember always!” she said, 
her gaze riveted in fascination upon it. “Who could 
have dreamed of anything so wildly picturesque, so 
terribly grand ?” Then she lifted her eyes to the great 
dominating cross. “In hoc signo vinces!” she mur- 
mured softly. 

Again Lloyd caught her words; and, remember- 
ing how they had come to his own mind, his own 
lips, when he first saw the cross of the Santa Cruz, 
he smiled a little. There certainly was a wonderful 
sympathy of thought and feeling between Miss 
Rivers and himself. 

“Yes,” he said, “I believe that in and by that sign 
the Santa Cruz will conquer; but I understand why 
Dona Beatriz does not wish that the symbol of 
peace should look down upon conflict and possible 
bloodshed.” 


340 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

“I also understand now,” Isabel answered. “One 
can not look at that cross and think of all that it 
signifies without understanding. Dona Beatriz has 
not only looked at it long, but borne it as well, and 
there is wonderful wisdom to be learned from a 
cross borne heroically. I suppose that what she 
wishes to do is to leave her cause in the hands of 
God. But do you believe that those men yonder” — 
she pointed to the group of figures in the patio — 
“will be satisfied to do so?” 

Lloyd shook his head. 

“I am sure they will not,” he said; “for, despite 
their deep and earnest faith, human passions are 
exceedingly strong in them. And if ever such pas- 
sions were justified, it is in this case of the Santa 
Cruz.” 

“It seems so to me,” Isabel remarked ; “and yet” 
— her glance again sought the great cross — “one 
can comprehend the higher, the more heroic view.” 

They had by this time almost reached the point of 
entrance into the patio ; and Lloyd, suddenly bring- 
ing the mule to a halt, looked up into her face. 

“Miss Rivers,” he said, “I am foolish, perhaps, 
to expose myself to another rebuff, another remind- 
er that I have no right to offer advice to you; but 
I must venture to beg that you will remain outside 
the patio of the mine. We are hoping that no 
struggle will occur here; but the fact remains that 
if the attacking party suddenly appears, a struggle 
will take place ; and, despite Dona Beatriz’ orders, it 


On the: Way to the Santa Cruz. 341 


will be a desperate and probably a bloody one. The 
patio will, of course, be the scene of it; and, consid- 
ering the possibility of this, I hope you will overlook 
my presumption in advising you, and heed the ad- 
vice.” 

“I am afraid that I don’t quite understand what 
your advice is Mr. Lloyd,” Isabel answered, with 
more meekness than he had expected. “Remain out- 
side the patio! But where can I remain? Surely 
not on this narrow trail ?” 

“Certainly not,” Lloyd replied. He turned prompt- 
ly and guided the mule up the mountain side, where 
a path led to some old workings of the mine. He 
found this path by accident rather than design, and 
followed its steep way for probably fifty feet. Then 
he halted suddenly by the side of an immense 
boulder, firmly imbedded on the steep mountain side. 
“Here,” he said, “is a throne which has been wait- 
ing for you from the beginning of time.” 

“It would certainly seem a pity not to occupy it, 
then,” Isabel answered lightly, as taking her foot 
from the stirrup, she held out her hands to be as- 
sisted from the saddle. 

A moment later she was seated on the flat top 
of the great rock ; and as Lloyd led the mule away, 
he said : 

“I will now find Dona Victoria.” 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


“l ASK NOTHING." 

T^HEY were a few strange, silent minutes which 
1 Isabel Rivers knew, seated alone in the darkness 
on her rock on the mountain side. After she heard, 
rather than saw, Lloyd fasten her mule to a tree 
near by and then go down again to the trail and on 
to the patio of the mine, she felt herself in a soli- 
tude as complete as if she had been leagues distant 
from any other human being. All around her was 
the deep silence of the everlasting hills, the great 
steeps rising to the sky, the encompassing forest 
which seemed waiting in breathless stillness for some 
event — some happening. She found herself uncon- 
sciously holding her breath as she waited too for 
what was to come. 

What came presently was a step returning along 
the path which led to her rocky perch, and a mo- 
ment later Lloyd’s presence beside her on the 
boulder. 

“I have come back,” he said, “to tell you that 
Doha Victoria is not willing to leave the mine, and 
to ask what you wish to do — to join her or to re- 
main here?” 


342 


I Ask Nothing. 


343 


“I thought,” said Miss Rivers, quietly, “that you 
advised my remaining here.” 

“So I did — so I do; but you may not like to re- 
main here alone.” 

“Why not? It might be more interesting at the 
mine, but I have found it very interesting here — so 
strange and eerie — ” 

Lloyd laughed a little. 

“You are very brave,” he said. “Most women 
would find the eeriness more frightful than interest- 
ing, I fancy. But are you really willing to stay here 
alone ?” 

“I am quite willing for the present at least. I 
feel as if I were occupying a proscenium box over- 
looking the stage where a drama is about to take 
place. Of course” — her tone changed — “that is a 
flippant way of putting it; but I should be some- 
what out of place at the mine, whereas here I can 
see everything that takes place and yet not be seen. 
I am obliged to you for suggesting my stopping at 
this point.” 

“Are you?” said Lloyd. “I am glad of that; for 
you have not been obliged to me for my other sug- 
gestions to-night.” 

“Certainly not,” she answered with emphasis. 
“How could you think that I would either stay at 
Las Joyas or return there, with all this exciting 
business going on ?” 

“Your father— 5 ” 


344 A Daughter of thf Sifrra. 

“We will not consider my father, if you please. 
Happily, as I remarked before, he is at Topia. We 
know what his sentiments would be if he were here ; 
but — happily again! — he isn’t here,” 

“He would certainly disapprove of your being 
here.” 

“As much as possible. He has disapproved from 
the first of my taking any active part in the Santa 
Cruz matter ; but you see fate cast me for an active 
part in spite of him.” 

“A very active part indeed,” observed Lloyd — 
“more active, perhaps, than either of us altogether 
realizes.” He paused, and there was a silence in 
which Isabel, remembering Armistead’s words and 
looks when she saw him last, asked herself if she 
had a part indeed in this last development ? Was this 
attack threatened because an angry and disappointed 
man was striking at her as well as at the Santa 
Cruz? Even in the starlight Lloyd could see how 
grave her face became as she turned it toward him. 

“I am afraid,” she said, “that my interest has 
perhaps done harm instead of good to the Santa 
Cruz.” 

“I think that I understand what you mean.” Lloyd 
answered; “but I believe you are mistaken. Armi- 
stead would have done everything which he has done 
even if he had not felt resentment against you for 
possible interference with his plans.” 

“I am not sure of that,” she replied. “When he 
came to see me a few days ago he told me that he 


I Ask Nothing. 


345 


was on his way out of the country; that he had aban- 
doned the idea of attempting to take possession of 
the mine by force, and then — well, then he went 
away very angry, making some threats, and— the 
next we hear is this.” 

“It seems as if there might be a connection be- 
tween the threats and — this,” said Lloyd. The 
statement made had not been very lucid, but he 
grasped without difficulty an idea of what had really 
happened. He paused again for a moment and then 
turned to Miss Rivers abruptly. 

“Will you let me inquire what Armistead told you 
about me?” 

Isabel started. 

“Why should you imagine that he told me any- 
thing about you ?” she asked. 

“I don’t imagine,” Lloyd answered: “I am sure 
of it. Your manner has told me so from the first 
moment we met at Las Joyas ; and now I only beg 
that your lips may be equally frank.” 

“I — I really don’t see — ” Isabel began; and then 
something in the influence of time and place — in 
the solitude and remoteness which seemed to isolate 
them here on this mountain side, in the sense of im- 
pending danger, in the presence, as it were, of the 
great realities of life and the absence of its conven- 
tionalities — compelled her to the frankness he asked. 
“He told me,” she said, “some things which — 
changed my opinion of you.” 

“As for example — ?” 


346 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


“That you are — divorced.” 

“Ah!” Lloyd drew in his breath sharply. “He told 
you that? And it changed your opinion of me! 
Why?” 

“Do you need to ask why?” Miss Rivers was a 
little haughty now. “You know what I think — 
what every Catholic must think — of divorce.” 

“Yet you are now staying in the -house of a - 
divorced woman, I believe.” 

“Mr. Lloyd! How dare you speak so of Dona 
Beatriz? I — I could not have believed it of you.” 

“I am stating a simple fact, Miss Rivers. No one 
admires and respects Doha Beatriz more than I do, 
but she is a divorced woman.” 

“By no fault and no consent of hers.” 

“Exactly! And therefore you do not hold her 
accountable for the position in which she has been 
placed by the acts of another. To be consistent, 
then, you must extend the same tolerance to me.” 

“If — if it is deserved, you know that I would do 
so. 

“Yes, I know,” he said more gently. “I have 
never doubted your tolerance or your kindness ; but 
I saw no cause why I should make a demand on 
either. My unhappy story seemed my own. There 
was no reason why I should trouble you with it. If I 
had ventured ever to approach you as an admirer 
— bah ! let us be frank — as a lover, you would have 
reason for resentment; but I never ventured to do 
that.” 


I Ask Nothing. 


347 


She did not answer ; but her memory bore witness 
for him, testified earnestly in his behalf, that he 
never had. She remembered how she had even ac- 
cused him of avoiding her, of being sorry to meet 
her in the Quebrada Onda. And then she heard 
his voice speaking again. 

“You must not think me ungrateful for all your 
kindness,” he was saying. “I have comprehended 
perfectly, almost from the day of our first meet- 
ing, that you recognized that life had in some way 
gone wrong with me, anc}, being much inclined to 
charity, were anxious to help me. I knew that you 
couldn’t help me — not at least in the way you de- 
sired; but I have been grateful for your sympathy, 
or why shouldn’t I say your pity? It is the same 
thing.” 

“No,” she interposed now, “it is not the same. 
What I felt for you has been sympathy, not pity.” 

“We won’t quarrel over a name,” he returned. 
“Sympathy or pity, or both, I have been grateful 
for it. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been if — well, if 
you were not you. I am afraid I have worn a very 
surly front when others offered me anything of 
the kind. But there’s something strangely mag- 
netic in your mental touch. The sorest spirit might 
endure it. And your comprehension is wonderful. 
Although I have not talked of myself, you have un- 
derstood that I have suffered moral shipwreck — that 
I am one of the bits of human flotsam and jetsam 
floating about the world, — and you have offered 


348 


A Daughter of the; Sie;rra. 


me a compassion so gentle that I have not only not 
hesitated to accept it, but I have. felt in it something 
almost like healing.” 

A flood of the compassion of which he spoke rose 
within her as she listened, mingled with a sense 
of wonder at herself — wonder that she could have 
forgotten the simplicity and sincerity which had 
always so deeply impressed her in all that he said or 
did, and that she could have felt toward him a re- 
sentment which she now acknowledged to have been 
unreasonable and unjust. 

“I am glad,” she said, “if I have been able to 
offer you anything even like healing, and I am sorry 
that I have been so presumptuous as to think — to 
do you injustice — ” 

“Never mind about that,” he interrupted. “Per- 
haps you were right — perhaps I should have told 
you that I was a man marked with disgrace — ” 

“No, no! How can you say so?” 

“It is what I have always felt. You see I come 
from a country where such a thing is held as a dis- 
grace. We are very ‘unprogressive’ in the South. 
Divorce is almost unknown with us, and marital 
infidelity — for which divorce is but another name — is 
sternly dealt with. Having been brought up in this 
society, where all the old standards are still in force, 
you can imagine my bewilderment when I drifted 
to the West and found myself in a society where 
divorce reigned supreme ; where all around one were 


I Ask Nothing. 


349 


men and women who had been married and un- 
married on the most trivial pretexts.” 

“I know — alas! I know only too well,” she 
answered. 

“You know,” he said, “the inevitable result — how 
marriage in those regions has lost all its sanctity, 
and, outside of the Catholic Church, is regarded 
only as a bond to be broken at will. Knowing and 
seeing this, you will say that I deserved all that 
has befallen me because I married a women reared 
in that society, who, besides having no moral train- 
ing, possessed no moral instincts stronger than 
those of a butterfly. She was a pretty frivolous 
creature, with whom I drifted into a flirtation and 
married because — well, briefly, because I was a fool. 
I soon paid the penalty of my folly. Having 
been a flirt before marriage, she continued 
to be a flirt afterward; and when I objected, she 
grew angry as at an invasion of her rights. One 
day I came home from a prospecting trip — we were 
living in a mining camp — to find my house empty, 
and a note from my wife telling me that she had 
gone to get a divorce. Of course she had no diffi- 
culty in obtaining it ; and the next news I heard was 
that she had married a man who had been one of 
those most intimate in my house, — one under many 
obligations to me, but whom I knew to have a strain 
of weakness in his character which had made him 
peculiarly susceptible to her influence. Even before 
she went away I had seen the effect of this influence 


350 A Daughter or thr Sirrra. 

on him; I had seen that she made him her con- 
fidant and that he took her side as against me in 
all our differences. The natural end was that as 
soon as she had obtained her decree of divorce he 
married her. His name was — is — Randolph.” 

Isabel started. 

“Not the man whom you went back to the Que- 
brada Onda to meet?” 

“The same,” Lloyd answered. “I had heard that 
she had in turn divorced him, and that he had gone 
to the dogs about as completely as a man could go; 
but I was hardly prepared to find the wreck I did. 
The man was once, as I said, very much under my 
influence — before he fell under hers, — and when he 
appealed to me to help him out of the depths into 
which he had fallen, I could not refuse. And if the 
effort not to refuse was hard, it was rewarded : he 
told me what I did not know before — that the 
the woman who had ruined both my life and his is 
dead.” 

There was a silence, after his voice fell over the 
last word, which lasted until Isabel said softly : 

“God have mercy on her soul!” 

“Amen !” Lloyd answered gravely, yet with the 
note of sternness with which he had told his story 
still in his voice. “I am willing to believe that she 
was only partly accountable for all the harm she 
did,” he went on after a moment; “but it is impos- 
sible to forget how great it has been.” 


I Ask Nothing. 


351 


“Try to forget,” the soft voice beside him said. 
“Remember that it is over now, and perhaps the 
suffering has taught you some things that you are 
the better for knowing.” 

“It has taught me one thing,” he said, “which 
you will think I am the better for knowing, and that 
is the divine wisdom of the Catholic Church in her 
attitude toward divorce ; and from that my eyes have 
been opened to recognize her divine wisdom and 
divine authority in all things.” 

“Thank God, then, for anything and everything 
which has brought you to that knowledge,” the 
sweet voice said again. “Sometimes one is made 
ashamed of one’s little faith — sometimes one has 
a wonderful glimpse of His purposes.” 

“Yes,” Lloyd assented. “I feel now as if every 
road in my life, every step I have taken, has led 
straight — here; straight to some end which God, 
no doubt, has foreseen and purposed. If it is pain 
— that does not seem just now to matter. Pain, 
as you have said, can serve a noble end, especially 
if it be the pain which springs from knowing and 
from loving you — ” 

“Ah!” cried Isabel, involuntarily — quickly. 

“There is no harm in telling you so, out here in 
the wild Sierra, so far removed from your life, as 
it has been and as it will be, that we might be in 
another world,” he said quietly. “You see, I ask 
nothing — nothing — ” 


352 A Daughter or thr SiRrra. 

He broke off ; for there was a sudden stir, a move- 
ment on the path below them, and a voice — that of 
Arturo — cried sharply: 

“Senor ! — Don Felipe \” 

“Here !” Lloyd answered. 

“Come — quick!” the voice went on. “The men 
have returned. The party is close at hand.” 

“I am coming,” Lloyd said, rising to his feet. 

At the same instant Miss Rivers rose too. 
Neither knew how her hand found its way into his. 

“God be with you!” she said in a very low but 
very calm tone. “And remember, though you do 
not ask, I am ready to give — everything.” 


CHAPTER XXX. 


The surprise party is surprised. 

7~ HE party are near at hand!” Lloyd repeated, 
when he joined Arturo at the entrance to the 
patio of the mine. “How near? — where are they.” 

Arturo made a motion indicating the other side of 
the mountain. 

“They are in an arroyo over there,” he said, 
“waiting, it is to be supposed, for a later hour of 
the night to surprise the mine.” 

“Good! Let us go to them at once. You are 
coming with me, are you not?” 

“Certainly,” Arturo answered. “But we shall 
take some men along, shall we not?” 

“No. We are not going as a surprise party, you 
and I, but as envoys of peace.” 

“Peace is all very well,” the young man returned; 
“but — how if they are not disposed for it ?” 

“Even then they can’t shoot us down in cold 
blood, you know, — two men alone. They are not 
supposed to be here for murder. Come! I want 
to get the thing over. Where is our guide?” 

“I’ll call one of the men.” 

Arturo’s tone was a little reluctant, as he turned 
back to the patio. The expedition did not please him. 

353 


354 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


Just now what he wanted, what all his young, in- 
dignant blood was clamoring for, was not peace at 
all, but war; and this going to offer peace to those 
who were ready for war was not to his liking. It 
was a proof of his strong regard for Lloyd, and of 
the latter’s strong influence over him, that he con- 
sented to go; but he expressed his disgust in a 
few forcible words to Victoria, whom he met, while 
calling for one of the scouts who had lately re- 
turned. 

“Knowing where they are and what they have 
come for, we could surprise them, we could fall 
upon them — wipe them out — annihilate them!” the 
young man cried, with flashing eyes. “But instead 
we are going to offer them peace — to beg them to 
go away — as if we were not men with arms in our 
hands! Oh, it is too much — too much!” 

Victoria inwardly sympathized to the full with 
this feeling; but outwardly loyalty made it neces- 
sary for her to support her mother and Lloyd. 

“You talk like a child, Arturo,” she said severe- 
ly. “They are not to be begged to go away; the 
Senor Lloyd is only going to tell them that it is 
useless for them to come, since we are ready for 
them. And he will take a party of armed men to 
show that we are ready.” 

“He refuses to do anything of the kind. We are 
going alone — he and I and Pedro Garcia.” 

“That is impossible ! — that can not be permitted !” 
cried Victoria, in her tone of authority ; and she im- 


The: Surprise: Party is Surprised. 355 


mediately went up to Lloyd, who, having also en- 
tered the patio , was now speaking to Don Mariano. 

“Senor,” she said, “I insist that you take a party 
of men with you. It is impossible to trust those to 
whom you are going; and — and we do not wish 
them to think that you go because we are not pre- 
pared for them here.” 

“I will render that very clear, senorita,” Lloyd 
replied, turning to her with a smile which even in 
the torchlight struck her as possessing a strange, 
unusual brightness. “Don’t fear that I shall not 
make them understand that the Santa Cruz is not the 
least afraid of them.” 

“But you will take some men — ” 

“No: there is no need to do so. As I have just 
reminded Arturo, we are going as envoys of peace, 
not of war. And Armistead is not in the least a 
desperado. This is purely business with him; and 
when we have met and discussed the matter, I think 
he will be ready to go quietly away without running 
any chance of being shot himself.” 

Victoria shook her head. She could not forget 
the look on Armistead’s face when he turned away, 
leaving Isabel and herself under the trees by the 
pools. There had not been very much of the man 
of business in that face just then. 

“I do not believe that he will go away quietly,” 
she said. “I believe that he will be very angry.” 

“No doubt,” Lloyd agreed. “A man is always 
angry when he is frustrated in something shabby; 


356 A Daughter or the; Sirrra. 

and Armistead will recognize at once that he has 
been frustrated, — that he has no chance to take the 
Santa Cruz, now that it is prepared to resist at- 
tack. But we are wasting precious time ! — Arturo !” 

“Here, senor!” Arturo responded. “And here is 
the man who will guide us over the mountain — ” 

“One word, senor!” Victoria cried hastily, as he 
turned to go. “Where did you say that the senorita 
— Doha Isabel — is?” 

Lloyd pointed to the boulder above the path, 
where, in the light of the torches, a white hand was 
seen to wave in that pretty Mexican salutation which 
is like a fluttering bird. 

“It will be well, I think, for you to bring her 
down to the patio now,” he said ; “or else to go to 
her.” 

“I will go to her,” Victoria replied ; “and for you, 
senor — V ay a Vd. con Dios!” 

Again, as once before, the beautiful words sound- 
ed in his ears and accompanied him like a blessing, 
— a blessing which his heart echoed as he went on 
his way. For no sunshine about his path could 
have made it seem brighter than that for which 
he had to thank God — the great blessing which had 
come to him, and which he was hardly able as yet 
to realize, in Isabel Rivers’ last words. They were 
still ringing in his ears, and his heart was like a 
feather in his breast as he climbed the dark moun- 
tain steeps, conscious of strange, light-hearted im- 
pulses to laugh or sing, which would have very 


The: Surprise: Party is Surprised. 357 

much astonished his companions had he yielded to 
them. 

So far from yielding, however, it was in perfect 
silence that he followed Pedro Garcia across the 
shoulder of the great height. They went in single 
file — the tall, lithe Mexican, with his soundless 
tread, in front; Lloyd next, and Arturo last, — al- 
though to the quick ear of the latter it seemed more 
than once that he was not last : that other, stealthy 
footsteps were following. Once or twice he paused 
and looked back, but then all was silence; the en- 
compassing forest lay mute around them, guarding 
the secret of whatever life it held. 

How long they had been on their way no one of 
them could have told; but they had left the canon 
of the Santa Cruz behind, and wound around the 
mountain by a path known only to their guide, and 
were on the side opposite the mine, when the ground 
suddenly seemed to open beneath their feet and they 
found themselves looking down into an arroyo — 
a wild, picturesque ravine extremely narrow and 
with precipitous, forest-clad sides — where a party 
of men were gathered about a fire. 

There was not an instant’s doubt that it was 
the party they sought. Even if the number and 
arms of the men had not made this clear, it was 
Armistead’s face on which the firelight shone most 
broadly as, with hat pushed back on his head, he 
stood looking up toward the spot where the three 
men were descending the hillside. As yet they 


358 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

could not be seen by those below ; but the dislodged 
stones which their feet sent down the steep declivity 
heralded their approach sufficiently; and one of 
the men by the fire, snatching up a rifle, brought it 
to his shoulder as he cried in Spanish : 

“Who comes there?” 

“Armistead,” Lloyd’s quiet voice replied, “tell 
that fellow to put down his rifle if he does not want 
his brains blown out.” 

Armistead extended his hand and threw up the 
rifle, with a brief, energetic remark to its holder. 
Then, in a voice filled with anger, he said : 

“So it’s you, Lloyd, is it? What do you want?” 

“I want,” Lloyd answered, as he came down the 
mountain into the full light of the fire, accompanied 
by Arturo, “to save you from a blunder into which 
you are on the point of falling. I am here to tell you 
that the people of the Santa Cruz are thoroughly in- 
formed both as to your whereabouts and your in- 
tentions, and that they are ready for you. In other 
words, the mine is prepared for defence ; and it may 
interest you to know that neither your party nor 
five times their number could take it.” 

“It is exceedingly kind of you to come and give 
me this information,” Armistead returned sarcastic- 
ally; “but I am inclined to think that if it were 
true, the Santa Cruz would have quietly awaited 
the arrival of my party.” 

“The Santa Cruz would have waited with the 
greatest pleasure,” Lloyd said, “but for its owner, 


The: Surprise: Party is Surprised. 359 


Dona Beatriz. Shameful as she knows this attempt 
at robbery to be, she is most anxious that no blood 
shall be shed in defence of her rights. Now, there is 
nothing more absolutely certain than that blood will 
be shed if you attempt to seize the Santa Cruz. 
Therefore, to save her from pain, as well as inci- 
dentally to save you from a tremendous blunder and 
perhaps a violent death, I have come over the moun- 
tain, accompanied by my friend, Don Arturo 
Vallejo, son of the administrador of the Santa 
Cruz” — Arturo bowed with the air of a minister 
plenipotentiary, — “to put the state of the case be- 
fore you. If you care to attempt to take the mine 
after this warning, I can only say that we shall 
be happy to oblige you with a fight. But if you are 
wise” — the speaker’s voice took a deeply significant 
tone — “you will be glad to have a good excuse to 
drop the business and get out of the Sierra — alive.” 

Armistead during this speech had leaned against 
a tree, his arms folded, his eyes half closed but never 
leaving Lloyd, his lips wearing a bitter sneer. When 
he answered it was in a tone of concentrated fury. 

“In return for your kind advice, I should like to 
inquire how much the Santa Cruz is paying for your 
extremely valuable services? I am aware that you 
betrayed my plans to them when you deserted my 
service — ” 

“You know that you are lying,” Lloyd interrupt- 
ed coolly; “and, considering that no one present un- 
derstands what you are saying except myself — and 


360 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


Don Arturo perhaps, — it seems very ineffectual and 
a great waste of time. Come, Armistead ! have sense 
enough to recognize that when you came into the 
Sierra to take the Santa Cruz you came on a fool’s 
errand, and that you owe your life to-night to a wo- 
man’s compassion. If we had allowed you to come 
to the mine — well, there wouldn’t have been very 
many of you left to go back. ' 

“We could have given an account of some of 
you!” Armistead snarled. 

“No doubt,” Lloyd agreed; “but you wouldn’t 
have taken the Santa Cruz. Don’t make any mistake 
about that. Now I’ll go. I’ve too good an opinion 
of your sense to think that you are likely to come 
over the mountain after what I have told you. But 
if you should decide to do so, we will be ready for 
you. That’s all I have to say.” 

He turned as he spoke, and in the same moment 
Armistead’s hand went to his hip pocket. The next 
instant he stood, revolver in hand — facing the long, 
pearl-handled pistol which, quick as lightning, 
Arturo had drawn and with which he covered him. 

“So you would shoot a man in the back, senor, 
and one who had come to you as a friend!” the 
young Mexican cried in a high key of indignation. 

At the words Lloyd wheeled around, drawing his 
own pistol as he turned. Then he saw that the sit- 
uation was threatening enough. Arturo indeed held 
Armistead covered, so that he could not level the 
revolver he had drawn ; but at the first sign of a pos- 


The Surprise Party is Surprised. 361 


sible fight the men in the background had snatched 
up rifles and drawn pistols, and only Lloyd’s stern 
face and levelled weapon held them (temporarily as 
he knew) in check. 

“The first man that draws trigger I will shoot 
down where he stands!” he shouted in Spanish; and 
there was a gleam in his eye, as well as a ring in 
his voice, which told them that he meant what he 
said. “It can’t be that you are such cowards as 
to begin a fight with two men alone, who have come 
into your camp as friends. If you want to fight, 
come like men to the Santa Cruz, and we will give 
you all you like.” 

“If you don’t order those men to put down their 
guns,” said Arturo to Armistead, “I will send a 
bullet into your heart instantly.” 

There was no mistaking the sincerity and deter- 
mination of the speaker. His blazing eyes and set 
face seconded the threat so well that Armistead — a 
brave enough man as men go, and one who had 
faced danger often and creditably — knew that never 
before had he been so close to death as when looking 
at the barrel of the pistol which covered him now. 
He turned and gave the order commanded. As the 
men somewhat reluctantly and sullenly obeyed it by 
lowering their weapons, there was a sound on the 
hillside above which made everyone start and look 
upward. 

It was the same sound, or succession of sounds, 
which had accompanied the approach of Lloyd and 


362 


A Daughter oe the Sierra. 


Arturo — stones dislodged and thrown downward by 
descending steps, boughs broken or crackling un- 
der advancing feet. Lloyd and Arturo shot a quick 
glance of interrogation at each other, while the 
men, without waiting for orders, caught up their 
guns again; but as they did so there was another 
sound on the foliage-covered mountain side — the 
ominous click of many triggers. 

“Drop your arms !” a voice cried peremptorily in 
Spanish — the voice, as Arturo instantly recognized, 
of the foreman of the Santa Cruz — “or we will pour 
a volley into you. The first man that fires a shot goes 
down !” 

The men stared at each other for a moment, and 
then obeyed the order with a haste that indicated 
how entirely they grasped the situation. There was, 
in fact, not a chance for resistance. They were 
caught in a trap and commanded by unseen but 
none the less unmistakably evident foes. For keen 
eyes, searching the hillside, could catch the gleam of 
rifle barrels through the foliage; and there was 
not one so stupid as to fail to realize that the tables 
had been turned upon them in the most unexpected 
fashion; that they who had intended to surprise 
were themselves completely surprised and taken at 
a hopeless disadvantage. 

Armistead, grasping the full significance of the 
situation, turned upon Lloyd, cursing him furiously. 

“This is what it meant — your pretending to come 
alone, to give a warning and talk peace!” he cried. 


The Surprise Party is Surprised. 363 


‘‘You were talking while your companions were get- 
ting into position to shoot us down, themselves un- 
seen.” 

“As you proposed to shoot the men of the Santa 
Cruz,” a quiet voice replied, — a voice so unexpected 
and so familiar that Lloyd and Armistead started as 
if they had been shot. The next moment Miss Rivers 
walked deliberately out of the shadow of the hillside 
growth into the open space illuminated by the light 
of the fire. She was followed by Victoria, and there 
was an audible murmur of amazed comment among 
the men when the two feminine figures appeared and 
paused between the two hostile forces. 

There are cases on record — chiefly in fiction — of 
women who have appeared in such situations and 
on such occasions as forbidders of strife, gentle 
bearers of the olive-branch of peace; but there was 
no suggestion of that kind about these two young 
women. No one could look at Victoria’s bent brows 
and flashing eyes without feeling that if she fol- 
lowed her inclination a volley from the rifles above 
would blaze out very quickly. And even Miss 
Rivers’ charming face was set in stern lines, and her 
dilated eyes were full of indignant light as she fas- 
tened them on Armistead. 

“I answer for Dona Victoria, because she does not 
speak English very well,” she went on in a clear, 
ringing tone. “She wishes you to know that Mr. 
Lloyd had nothing whatever to do with the coming 
of the men whose guns hold the hillside above. He 


364 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

refused to take any party with him, and insisted on 
going to you accompanied only by Don Arturo. But 
Doha Victoria did not believe that this was safe. She 
had little faith in the honor of men who would 
come on such an errand as yours; and her doubts 
have been fully justified. So, to protect, if neces- 
sary, those who went to you on behalf of her mother, 
she took a party of men from the mine and 
followed. You know whether or not we have come 
in time ; whether or not you and the cowards in your 
pay” — she sent a sweeping glance of brilliant scorn, 
for which no interpreter was needed, around 
the circle of silent men — “were not ready to murder 
the two men who had come to you as friendly en- 
voys.” 

“Extremely friendly !” Armistead said with a bit- 
ter sneer. “And have I the pleasure of speaking to 
the commander of the rescue party when I address 
Miss Rivers?” 

“You know that you have not,” Miss Rivers re- 
plied. “I have simply accompanied Dona Victoria 
Calderon, who does command it, and who will now 
speak to you herself. I have no doubt that you know 
Spanish enough to understand her.” 

She turned as she spoke to Victoria, who stepped 
a little forward. As she did so Lloyd thought that 
he had never seen anything quite so splendid as her 
appearance and attitude. With her superb figure in 
a pose of unconscious command, her fine head 
thrown back on its slender throat, and her dark eyes 


The Surprise Party is Surprised. 365 


shining under their bent brows, she looked like a 
queen on the point of delivering sentence to rebel- 
lious subjects. 

“Besides what the senorita has been good enough 
to say for me in order that it may not be misunder- 
stood, I have nothing to say to you, senor,” she said, 
addressing Armistead, “except to give you this mes- 
sage for — the man who sent you here. Tell him 
that, for the sake of the God of whom he knows 
nothing, and to save my mother from further suffer- 
ing, I, Victoria Calderon, have allowed you to go 
with your life from these lands of the Santa Cruz 
upon which you have come with arms in your hands. 
But assure him that if ever you, or any one else, 
come back on such an errand, you will not go away 
alive. Understand this clearly; for in the Sierra 
what we say we do. Now, you and all your men will 
lay your arms down there” — she indicated a spot 
not far from where Lloyd and Arturo stood. “And 
if you have any disposition to refuse, I need only 
remind you that every man here is covered by a 
rifle.” 

Armistead, white to the lips with rage and morti- 
fication, turned to his men. 

“There is nothing else to be done,” he said. “They 
are cowards — they have the advantage of us, — they 
will not come out in the open to fight like men.” 

“Your taunts are useless, senor,” Victoria said 
quickly. “My men will obey my orders ; and those or- 
ders are that no blood shall be shed, unless” — and 


366 A Daughter oe the Sierra. 

very stern was her voice here — “you force the shed- 
ding on us. Lay down your arms !” 

There was no mistaking the peremptory command 
of her tone; and a slight stir among the foliage 
above as of the men taking aim, seconded it with 
excellent effect. Armistead threw the revolver, 
which up to this time he had held in his hand, on the 
ground ; and one by one the men brought their rifles 
and piled them up at the spot designated. The busi- 
ness proceeded in unbroken silence under Victoria’s 
eye, Lloyd and Arturo standing beside her with 
cocked pistols in hand. When the last man had de- 
posited his gun and fallen back, she spoke again : 

“Now you will all leave the lands of the hacienda 
at once. Arturo, take half a dozen men from there” 
— she nodded to the hillside — “and march them 
to the camino real. When you leave them, give this” 
— she stooped and picked up Armistead’s revolver — 
“to the senor, since he is a stranger in the Sierra.” 

Ten minutes later the sullen, captured men had 
been marched away by Arturo and his armed band ; 
and the victors, standing over the heap of guns, 
looked at one another as if hardly realizing what had 
been accomplished. Miss Rivers was the first to 
speak, as she threw her arms around Victoria. 

“Isn’t she magnificent!” she cried to Lloyd. 
“Could anybody — any man — have done better?” 

“No general could have done better,” he replied. 
“It was a military movement admirably conceived 


The Surprise Party is Surprised. 367 

and perfectly executed. Dona Victoria, I believe 
that I owe you my life, and it was never worth so 
much to me as to-night.’’ 

“Ah !” said Victoria, with a little gasp. Her glance 
went swiftly from one to the other of the two faces 
before her, and she read plainly what had happened 
in the eyes of each. She clasped Isabel close, while 
she held out her hand to Lloyd. 

“Gracias a Dios!” she cried. 





















































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































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